


Frozen faces

by Fjodor



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bella's a statue, Bellamione discord, F/F, has been for a while
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-07-16 12:10:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 25,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16085837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fjodor/pseuds/Fjodor
Summary: Idea I took from the Bellamione Discord, specificly from ImaginePastaKnife.#teamtea





	1. A new year

“Now, as everyone in this hall knows, Lord Voldemort and his followers are once more at large and gaining strength.” Dumbledore spoke, letting the silence underline his words. “I cannot emphasise strongly enough how dangerous the present situation is, and how much care each of us at Hogwarts must take to ensure that we remain safe. The magical fornications have been strengthened over the summer, we are protected in new and more powerful ways, but we must still guard scrupulously against carelessness on the part of any student or member of staff. I urge you, therefore, to abide by any security restrictions that your teachers might impose on you, however irksome you might find them – in particular, the rule that you should not be out of bed after hours. I implore you, should you notice anything strange or suspicious within or outside the castle, to report it to a member of staff immediately. I trust you to conduct yourselves, always, with the utmost regard for your own and each other’s safety. As always the forbidden forest stays on the list of places a student shouldn’t be able to find themselves, the third floor is ones again off limits to anyone and I was asked by Mr. Flitch to remind you that his office is only to be entered on his invitation.”

Dumbledore’s blue eyes swept over the student before he smiled ones more.

“but now, your beds await, as warm and comfortable as you could possibly wish, and I know that your top priority is to be well-rested for your lessons tomorrow. Let us therefore say goodnight. Pip pip!”

Hearing the thundering sounds of people pulling back the benches Hermione stayed seated for a moment, ‘the third floor is ones again off limits,’ she thought. ‘Could Dumbledore have hidden something else in there?’ Feeling several pairs of eyes look at her, she looked up.

“What?”

“What does it mean?” Ron asked, Ginny and Harry where also still sitting waiting for her to explain Dumbledore’s speech.

“The short version is; He-who-must-not-be-named is bad, look out for others when you’re out of the castle, secret entrances are off limits and probably sealed. There is a chance Death eaters might try to slip in, and that something else is hidden in the third floor corridor.”

Stretching her arms above her head till she heard a pop. She turned around and stood up.

“First years could you please follow me,” she called out to the group of first years that seemed uncertain where they were going. ‘It was good to be back,’ she thought walking up to the little witches and wizards. ‘let’s get this over with.’

“Ron, could you run ahead to let the others in?” She called over her shoulder to the boy who was still milling over her explanation of the speech.

“Sure,” Ron called out and he made his way past the first years rushing ahead to the Gryffindor common room.

“Are you really a which?” One of the first years asked her when she was leading them out of the hall, to the left up one of the moving staircases.

“Abbot, right?” Hermione asked, before looking if they had all managed to get onto the staircase before it moved to its new destination. “Yes, Miss.”

“Hermione is fine, and to answer your question; yes I am a witch. Could you all follow me, the hallways are a bit cramped so keep close.” She called to the tail of the new Gryffindor’s group. A duo of boys had already pulled out their wand and had an insidious look in their eyes before she called on them. They reminded her of the twins, ‘let’s hope they don’t make as much ruckus as them,’ she hoped.

Turning the corner of the hallway she looked up to see if Ron had reached the common room already to let in the other Gryffindor’s in. Not noticing any other students she concluded that he had been able to let them in.

“Hermione, can I ask you another question?” The girl asked waking up next to her.

“You can,” She told her.

“Is it true that you are friends with the boy-who-lived?”

Sighing, she thought for a second about her answer. Would she tear down their hero-complex now or would she let them live for a few more days in bliss of ignorance? She knew that the view of the wider Magical world was an distorted version of reality, they viewed Harry as the Chosen-one.

“I’m friends with Harry,” she told Abbot and the few others who were walking close behind. She wondered if they had waited all night to ask her, she might be reading a bit far into it.

“But, now you are part of Gryffindor you will all have the pleasure of hanging out with Harry,” she told them, making a note to remind herself to warn Harry about the group of enthusiastic first years she’d just set loose on him.

Arriving at the Fat lady, she told her the password, “ardenti sugar.” The portrait swung open to let them enter. A feeling of familiarity washed over her when she walked into the chamber. Five years she had spent here, or like five and three quarter years counting the time-turner.

“Your dormitories can be found on the sixth floor through those doors,” she told them, “Boys are on the right and girls on the left. Boys, you aren’t allowed in the girls dormitories, got it?” She asked, when a few of them nodded she decided that they could be left alone for now.

Walking away from them she settled into one of the open armchairs in front of the fire, she found some of the other students talking among themselves. Letting out a relaxing sigh, Harry noticed that she’d arrived.

“Hey, Hermione we saved you a cup of tea.” He said handing her a steaming cup. Taking it she noticed how cold she really was, Hogwarts while powered by a lot of magic could do with some kind of central heating.

Harry had leaned back and was pinned onto the seat by Ginny who was loudly arguing with Ron about the chess game they were playing. Ginny had laid herself flat-out on the chair across Harry, he didn’t seem to mind. She had the feeling that he liked to be distracted from what was happening elsewhere. A moment of peace she pondered taking a sip from the tea.

“So, do you have any idea what could be on the third floor?” Harry asked softly, not wanting to interrupt the Weasley’s heated discussion.

“Not really,” she confessed, “Have you tried to look on the map if there is someone there?” She asked, suddenly thinking about it.

“I hadn’t,” he said, “give me a second to get it.” He pushed Ginny gently off him before standing up.

“Where are you going?” Ron asked noticing that his sister had stopped arguing.

“I’ll be right back, just going to get something.” Harry called back, walking into the boys dormitories tower. Ron took this moment to start arguing with Ginny again, defending his position that his tower had made a totally legal move. He disappeared from sight, she could hear a door opening. A few moments later she could hear him descending the stairs with a folded piece of parchment.

“Here we go,” he settled back in his seat folding out the parchment. Putting his wand in the centre, “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.” The map spread out to the edge and the ink filled all the little feet and walls that made up Hogwarts. He was already folding out the layers of parchment looking for the third floor part.

Hermione leaned over to take closer look at the familiar layout of the rooms that she had overcome in their first year. There was the round room which had contained the devil’s snare, the key room, giant chess, potion riddle and then the room that contained the mirror of Eresid. Now though they could see something else, there was a pair of ink shoes with a name.

“Who is Bellatrix Black?” Harry asked, reading the name out.

The Weasley’s stopped arguing, looking over to the two of them. “What name did you say?”

“Bellatrix Black.” Harry repeated watching the map closer, looking if the figure would move.

“I heard dad talk about her, she was with You-know-who during the first war. But she disappeared a few weeks before He disappeared himself. He told us that she was missing or presumed dead.” Ron told them.

Pondering on what Ron said, she leaned back in her armchair. Sipping on her tea.

The clocktower rung twelve at that moment.

“Well whatever happened to her can wait for tomorrow.” Harry said suddenly realising how late it really was.

Hermione got up and bid her adieu, waiting for Ginny to get up she left for her room. Saying goodnight to Ginny, she opened the door and greeted Fay and Parvati before undressing and slipping under the covers. They were as warm and comfortable as you could possibly wish.

-

The morning sun shone through the towers window, waking Hermione. This first week had been a lot, they hadn’t been kidding when they told them it was much harder this year. She’d been able to finish her homework before the weekend so she had time to relax and just spend the day at the edge of the lake with Luna and Ginny, reading one of the books that she had taken with her.

They had agreed to hang out yesterday when she noticed that the boys hadn’t started on their work. She would probably look over their work later today. But right now she didn’t want to think about it, she just wanted to go get breakfast.

Throwing on a t-shirt and jeans, she descended to the common room and looked out over the lake. It looked lovely this time of day, the sunrise had just happened and the dew was glistering. It was going to be a good day she decided.

Walking out of the common room she heard someone call out her name.

“Hermione!” A voice called out, turning around she could see Abbot running up.

“Hi, Abbot,” she said waiting in the portrait hole letting the little girl catch up.

“Do you have a question?” Hermione asked her, she had spent the last week asking a lot of questions. Which didn’t bother her at all, the small girl always asked smart questions.

“I do,” she stated, “why can’t we go to the third floor?” She then asked.

“Headmaster Dumbledore said we weren’t allowed, so that’s why.” She told her, not letting the Death eater theory know to the first year.

“But why?” She asked.

“I don’t know, Abbot, if he wanted us to know why he would have told us.” She told the girl honestly, thinking back to all the times that Dumbledore had held back information for their own best will. He worked in mysterious ways, like Nostradamus only after the facts did his actions seem to make sense.

Abbot seemed to be disappointed with the answer but seemed to realise that it was the best one she would get without asking the headmaster herself.

Hermione said goodbye to her before leaving for breakfast. The great hall was still fairly empty when she entered, she could see that a few of the Hufflepuffs where already eating and they greeted her when she walked in. She took her seat towards the entrance of the hall on the Gryffindor table. The Daily Prophet was dropped of when she filled her bowl with cereal.

It talked about the increased treat that You-know-who posed to the Magical world, there was a rumour that he was trying to break the remaining Dead eaters out of Azkaban. There was also a small story about the ministries attempts to relaunch the Triwizard tournament, but that didn’t seem to be going anywhere. She turned the paper round to find the crossword puzzle that was included in the weekend editions.

Getting caught in the puzzle she didn’t notice that the hall was slowly filling up, at least the other tables. The Gryffindor table stayed mostly empty, their house wasn’t known for early risers when they didn’t have to. Around ten she had finished most of the puzzle and Luna had taken a seat across of her, looking up she noticed that the Quibbler was the right way up.

“Good morning, Luna.” She greeted her friend.

“Morning Hermione.” Luna said dreamy, sounding unsure of what she had said but deciding that it was probably fine.

Greetings out of the way she finished the puzzle and started to pack a picknick for Ginny. She would be joining them later, Harry and her Where at quidditch try-outs. They weren’t expected to be finished before half past ten.

“Care to join me?” She asked of Luna.

Luna didn’t react other that standing up and walking towards the exit of the hall still reading the magazine. Unfazed by the group of Ravenclaws that just burst through, missing her by a hair.

The walk towards the lake was pleasant, the summer was still able to provide the warmed to keep the cool morning at bay. They were only about halfway across the law before, she could see Ginny approaching. Harry was not far behind, he waved before retreating to the castle.

“How did it go?” She asked Ginny.

“Gonna be honest, could be worse.” She said taking the basket filled with the picknick to the shore. The surface of the water was as smooth as a mirror, the reflection of the mountains in it would have been worth a picture. Pity she didn’t have a camera with her.

Before she knew it they had settled down on the shore, the sun dispersed the few clouds that speckled the Scottish countryside. The day was as expected very calm and summerlike. She could almost fall asleep here, reading her book in the company of friends. But something still didn’t feel right. She thought back to the first day that they had come back to Hogwarts.

‘Bellatrix Black’, the name stuck in her head since the first time she had heard it. There was something about her name that intrigued her. In her limited time that doing housework left her she spend researching the black family and she had send an owl to Sirius for information. Hadn’t heard anything back though.

“Hermione are you going to read that book the whole day?” Ginny yelled from the lake. She’d changed into a bad pack and was swimming with Luna who was laying on one of the rocks further in the lake.

Hermione put her book down, ‘let’s enjoy the last few moment of summer’ she though. Bellatrix isn’t going anywhere anyway.


	2. Dungeons

September really came and went, autumn had started and the weather had turned for the worse, the days that the sun dominated the sky’s had been few. The new weather was one of grey mornings and rain.

Hermione’s plan to find out the most she could about Bellatrix seemed to have stumped, the only reference she had been able to find on her was a note in a book on the pureblood families of the modern age. But all the information on her had been removed from the library.

Sirius also hadn’t replied to her questions, but that might be because of the protections on the Grimmauld Place. She had hoped that he might be able to shed some light on his family. From what she had been able to figure out from the pureblood family book was that they were like second cousins.

She also hadn’t had time to go and snoop around the third floor. Teachers had really cracked up the pressure, and with her will to be the best student she could be. She had built her reputation over the past five years and wasn’t going to let a mysterious unmoving person take that from her.

But she had been curious, having her on her mind whenever she wasn’t studying, running from classes, helping the boys and mentoring some of the fifth years. But as the first month back turned the page and autumn really dug itself into year. She ones again found herself with noting on her hands, caught up on her work and the boys would start pestering her later that evening, if she wanted to look it over. She was drawn back to the entrance door of the third floor.

In her hand she had a small piece of parchment that was enchanted with a similar enchantment that Harrys map had. Sirius had helped her over the summer, as he had been involved with making the original. She just had to place the parchment on top of the map and then touch them together it would copy onto hers.

For the past few weeks she had occasionally looked at it checking into Bellatrix. Looking if she had moved, turned or anything at all. But there had been no movement at all, discussing this with Harry and Ron they came to the conclusion that Bellatrix was alive, because the map only showed living people. They had also theorised that she might be paralyzed in some way, which would be the explanation behind the not moving that Bellatrix was doing.

Looking back up to the door that blocked her way, she took a decision.

Moving her wand up she whispered the spell, “Alohomora”.

The lock turned and with a click the door swayed open a bit. From a distance it still looked to be closed, the shadows that played from the lights behind her. She looked over her shoulder and looked if there was anyone there.

Concluding that she was here alone she slipped in the hallway, closing the door behind her.

A low thud sounded out in front of her, out in the empty hallway and floor. The hallway wasn’t lit like the rest of the castle, which made sense. There was no-one supposed to be here. She took out the parchment looking if something had changed when she entered the forbidden part of the castle. Notting had happened, she was still standing there in the middle of the room, still facing the eastern wall.

Making her way down to the hall that had contained Fluffy years past. Opening that door she was relieved that the trapdoor was still there. She had feared for a small moment that Dumbledore had removed it. There were still some scratch marks left in the room reminding her that there used to be a dangerous set of trails in this place.

She pulled the piece of wood up, it surprised her how light it was. Chuckling a little, she pulled it back completely, leaving it open for when she was coming out again. The darkness that filled the space beneath the floor, she pulled her wand out again and fired a some light globule down.

The light descended slowly, lighting the walls and she could see that the devil’s snare was still there. ‘That would be convenient,’ she though already dispelling the light charm and preparing herself to fall into the black.

Standing up she quickly send a paper bird that she conjured up to Ginny, letting her know that if she wasn’t back by five that they should come and get her. Seeing it flutter away she took a deep breath before plunging down into the dark.

The air moved past her in quickly before she fell onto the Devil’s snare, she settled herself before she light the room up again. Feeling the plant release her dropping her on the floor below.

The next room she had dreaded, as her skill on the broom hadn’t improved much since her introduction to the wizard world. She was relieved that when she walked into the large room, there were no more flying keys, the brooms had vanished and the key for the door was hung up on a string next to the lock.

Taking it she fitted it in the lock, she felt a slight shock go through her hand. ‘There must have been a kind of spell on it,’ she tough turning it and opening the door. Which she walked through into the former giant chess room. The board was still there but the pieces had been removed, it was as if the castle had cleaned out the trails when they weren’t needed anymore. There was still a groove left where Ron had been struck down, leaving the him unconscious.

She walked past it and pushing the big wooden door that separated the room from the next trail room. Now unscrupulous and clean the dungeon that hosted the troll was cold. Colder than the previous few rooms she cast a warming charm on herself. A gust of warmth rushed through her from her centre to the extremities of her bodies, when they reached her fingers and toes it was a little uncomfortable but that feeling subsided.

Looking on she saw her breath in the air. It showed that the temperature had really just dropped off when she was moving closer to the last few chambers. There was nothing holding her back here but there was a feeling that had started to push her away. She could still move on without problem but when she stood still there was a pressure.

The potions room was also empty, leaving behind a discarded table moved to the side and here was the first major change that she had noticed in the dungeons. Where the rest just felt more empty and clean here was something different. Someone had put up a curtain where the last doorway had been.

Approaching it the feeling that she should abandon this room and the rest of the dungeons grew larger and larger. It was painful for her to reach out and try to touch it. The spell seemed to grow in magnitude the closer she got. Reaching out her fingertips caressed the curtain.

The feeling dropped immediately, the spell that had influenced her for the past few minutes had dropped and she was relieved that the pressure was gone. Taking out the parchment she looked for any changes, but finding noting she pushed the curtain aside she walked into the hallway that Harry had described to her some years ago. When he last walked it there was a first bit straight and then a sharp turn to the right opening up into the chamber that used to house the mirror and now apparently Bellatrix.

Holding the preachment up she saw herself approaching just a few more feet before the corner she noticed another door that wasn’t on the map. Or at least there wasn’t a room behind it, it looked sturdy and wooden with some cast iron hinges. It looked like some of the older classroom doors around the first floor, but somehow it looked newer, less used. Which made sense as it was literally on the end of a set of dungeons hidden behind a trapdoor.

Deciding that she would investigate it later she turned the corner and looked into the last room, the room that she had looked at a lot since term had started. It had fascinated her, she had asked Harry for as much detail as he could recall from five years ago. He had given her a lot though, despite being in the room for less than thirty minutes and he had been distracted by Quirrell/He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named combo.

He had told her that the room was an oval, the entrance being on the slimmer part, there were some steps down to a large open space. And the sides had been decorated with a gallery of pillars, behind which there was space for some fires.

Now though it was dark, and cold. She was tempted to just light the room from where she was standing, releasing a Lumos maxima into it. But she decided against it, what if she frightened Bellatrix. She imagined that it wouldn’t be taken in thanks if she just blasted the room with light blinding her.

Walking on she cast a normal Lumos watching her step, approaching the threshold of the chamber. The light that shone from the tip of her wand didn’t reach far into the chamber. The spell managed to light up till about ten feet into the room. She could see the steps going down but there was still no sign of another person.

Stopping at the doorway she decided that she had to announce herself. If there was somebody here they might not have noticed her approach she realised, she had not said much since she entered about 25 minutes ago and had made a point of not disturbing the silence that had surrounded her.

“Hello, is there anyone in here.” Hermione whispered, quieter than she had intended. “Hello.” She tried again a little louder. Trying to listen to any sound that might be coming out of the chamber.

There was nothing coming back to her, the silence settled ones again as if nobody had interrupted it. It was like a blanket of snow had settled with silence. The room was cold she noticed, even though she had put a warming spell on herself she had the feeling that down here it was freezing.

Calling out ones more, she moved across the threshold, wand in hand she followed the wall till she reached the gallery that held the torches that were put on the wall. Not looking at the middle of the room Hermione lit one after the other working clockwise till she reached the entrance again.

Letting out a breath that she didn't realise she had been holding since she entered the room. Straightening out her back she told herself, ‘Come on Hermione, you can do this,’ before she turned around.

Looking over her shoulder as she turned she found herself looking at a strange sight. In the middle of the room there was a woman, cladded in black with a see-through veil-like cloth draped over her. It looked as if she had been in her current position for a while she concluded noticing the amount of dust that had gathered on the floor surrounding the statue.

The woman’s - who must be Bellatrix, Hermione concluded – face was still obscured from where she was standing but there was something about her that pulled her in. She lowered her wand approaching the statue, reaching up to pull on the cloth.

“Miss Granger.”

She pulled back her hand quickly turning on her heels to see Albus Dumbledore standing in the hallway.

“Professor…” Hermione started before she was interrupted.

“She’s something isn’t she?” He asked walking closer.

Dumbstruck for a moment, She looked confused at him.

“She was one of the best Witches to have graduated from this school. Such potential, so much drive in learning.” He went on, conjuring a pair of chairs before sitting on one of them.

“I remember it well, the first Black to be welcomed into our halls for thirty years, a new generation. They had always been a interesting family. Powerful too, they all seemed to be able to work with magic in a much more flued way than most of the other Witches and Wizards. Their family has always been at the forefront of history, not always in a good way mind you…” He chuckled at that.

Hermione was surprised by what she was hearing, Dumbledore had caught her in the act. She was trespassing, in a part of the castle that he had explicitly forbidden anyone of entering. But here he was sitting down, talking about how Bellatrix had been a good student and some stuff about the Black family for some reason.

“… even their family motto, ‘Toujour Pur’, points you in that direction. The meaning has shifted in the last few years though, thinking that it is about being pure of blood, while the opposite is most true…”

“Professor.” She interrupted him, feeling that if she didn’t he would have taken the time to talk for several more hours.

“Humm.” He said his eyes focusing back to the present situation.

“Aren’t you going to send me away?” She asked the older wizard.

“Sending you away?” She asked, seemingly surprised at the question. “Why would I do such a thing?”

“Well you said that the third floor was off limits.”

“Are we on the third floor?” He asked, a twinkle could be seen in his eye. Before I could answer he was already talking ones more.

“Off course we could argue that the dungeons are part of the third floor. But as they are more likely to be counted as part of the dungeons beneath the castle. Wouldn’t you agree miss. Granger?”

“Yes, but…”

“But you did walk through the forbidden floor though.” He said more a statement than a question. “So that means that I do need to dock you some point’s. One point from Gryffindor.”

He stood up, waving his wand transforming his chair into a small table.

“I think that I will leave you two alone for now.” Dumbledore said patting his robes to get the dust off them. “When you are done, could you please leave through the door over there?” Not waiting for a reply he walked away, out through the wooden door.

‘What the hell, was all that?’ she though sitting in the chair that Dumbledore left her. It was a surprisingly comfortable seat. Taking time to process everything that he had said she looked back over to Bellatrix.

“Do you have any idea what that was all about?”

“…”

Standing again she approached the figure, brushing her fingers over the cloth that was draped over her. It was surprisingly soft to the touch and dust free for the most part. It looked like it had been enchanted to repel dust from it. Mostly successful, there were a few places where it was floating on top of it, settled in small islands floating waiting for another piece of dust to push it further along.

Taking it between her fingers she slowly started pulling it off of the figure. Not wanting to drop it, but curious what was hidden underneath. Draping the cloth over an extended arm, she could finally look at the face that had been obscured by the veil.

‘An angel’, was the first thing the she could think off when she say her face. Even a second or third look didn’t change much to her thoughts.

She took a step back and sat back down on the seat, ‘how come there is an angel’, She though. Looking away from the statue, she saw that the table left by Dumbledore now had had a tea kettle on it with a cup.

She poured herself a cup, thinking long and hard about what she was seeing here. ‘She is obviously still alive,’ she concluded from the parchment that she had pulled out, showing Bellatrix standing still and her alongside her. But she was not alive, at least not in the traditional sense. She sipped the tea before frowning, she leaned over and knocked her finger on one of the legs.

Knock, knock, knock.

It didn’t sound hollow, she though sitting back.

“Do you know what happened?” She asked of her.

“…”

‘What did you expect?’ she thought, letting out a deep sigh. Getting up the left the cup on the table, conjuring a small note.

‘Dear sir, my apologies for leaving these so far outside of your normal working environments.’ She penned down for the houself’s.

She turned again to face Bellatrix and draped the veil back over her. Leaving the chamber she looked back again. The only thing that showed that anyone had been here were the chair and table with tea kettle on it. ‘I’m coming back here,’ she decided before walking through the wooden door that Dumbledore had pointed out before.

Opening the door she say that it connected to the headmasters office. Which couldn’t be possible without magic.

“Miss. Granger how nice of you to joins us.” She heard from behind the door.

Looking round it she saw that Dumbledore was sitting behind his desk. He had just put down some kind of magazine she thought walking up to the desk.

“So you have met Miss. Black?” He asked.

“Was that her?” She asked taking a seat in one of the chairs that where place in front of the desk.

“I’m afraid it is her.”

“What happened?”

“That is a good question. As you might have noticed, Bellatrix turned to stone.” He said, looking for confirmation, she nodded. “This in itself wouldn’t be such a big deal, as you might know.” He went on.

“There is a variant of potions that can deal with petrification. But when we tried those potions on her it didn’t work like we hoped. Instead of getting rid of the petrification she stiffed up and turned to the state that you just observed.”

“So, she’s stuck like that?” She asked of him.

“I wouldn’t say that just jet miss. Granger. It is true that I haven’t been able to lift this particular curse, but I am an old man, as you might have noticed, and I’m quite set in my way. I tried all the techniques that I’ve picked up over the years, but I’m stuck in my ways.” He said matter of fact.

“There must be a way to un-petrify her?”

“Well, miss. Granger if you have any ideas, be my guest.”

“What do you mean?”

“If I wasn’t clear, I think that I must admit defeat in this area. But if you were to take a try it wouldn’t hurt.” He said.

Hermione though that she was getting what he was saying. “Do you want me to try to un-stone Bellatrix?”

“As I said, I have admitted defeat, but a fresh pair of eyes could be good in this situation.”

“I…” she started before she stopped herself, “I think that I can’t give you my answer right away.” She said, there was going to be some research before she was going to commit to this.

“The offer stands,” Dumbledore said, “now, off with you before your friends burst into the third floor.”

Why would her friends burst into the third floor, she though before she remembered the paper bird she had send Ginny about getting her if she wasn’t back in time.


	3. Winter comes round

Christmas had come and gone when Hermione returned to Hogwarts. The snow that surrounded the castle was untouched because it was just too cold, even with warming spells there was little to keep it at bay. Even the few Gryffindors that had been brave enough to have a snowball fight, needed to surrender to nature.

Hermione had taken note of the weather but it didn’t bother her as much. Most of her time she had spent in Bella’s room, as she had taken to call the dungeon she was placed in. Her research was progressing slowly, they theories behind petrification where old. It seemed that when they found a convenient cure-all, they stopped looking for cures of more rare forms of petrification.

There were some cases in Greece where the draught made of Mandrake roods was also ineffective. There were some theories that they had been petrified by Medusa or one of her descendants. But it would be very unlikely that Bella had looked Medusa in the eye, they weren’t know to leave the Mediterranean sea basin.

She had even informed whit the Greek Magical Ministry. They had replied with a short letter telling her that Medusa or her family hadn’t left Greece for the last couple of decades. So she could cross them off the list.

The list of possible causes slinked by the weeks that had passed. The first ones that could be crossed off where Basilisk, the Hat Giang River water was ruled out because it lost its properties as soon as you take it out of the stream.

The list of spells that could petrify somebody had also proven useless. Their counter spells had been tested and none of them worked. She had almost given up, but she felt that that would betray Bella. She had promised that she would turn her stone back into flesh, but she was barely a step closer to solving the problem than that she had been in October.

“Good morning.” She told her, she had started talking to the statue. Feeling that if there was a change she could solve the petrification problem, there would also a change that she was conscious in this state. Which seemed scary if she hadn’t been petrified herself during most of her second year.

From what she could remember it was not that time had a strictly linear way of working. When she’d woken up her memories where a patchwork of times and dates, it had taken a few days to sort out the order of everything again. But she’d gotten through it.

She did have some doubts that Bella would recover as quickly as she had. Her almost seventeen years versus her six months did not seem to be on the same level. But that was a problem for then she though, she first had to solve the problem of her not being stone anymore.

“The snow stopped falling last night,” she went on not letting the silence settle between them. Which was difficult when she was the only person talking in this conversation. She had taken to describe the weather, talking about the antics of the Gryffindor house. She also told her about her nephew Draco, who had fallen in a depression since Halloween had happened.

But every time she left the room, telling her goodnight she could swear that the statue was on the verge of shedding its stone skin. But nothing happened, not the first time and by the hundred time she had come to expect nothing else.

Only when she called out, “Goodnight Bella.” She could have sworn that there was a twinkle in her eyes. ‘Trick of the light,’ she thought letting the fires fade and walk out of the room. She wasn’t entirely convinced that it had been a trick of the light but she knew that she could only accept facts in her research. This was why when she walked through the door, she didn’t notice that the statues eyes had regained their brown colour.

-

Coming in the next morning she said her usual greeting, “Good morning Bellatrix.” She stopped in her tracks, something had changed she noticed. During the past few months there had been no change in the statue, it had been the same shade as the stones that the dungeon was made up from. But something had changed, she looked over the statue. Not able to find it after the initial shock that her mind had told her that there had been a difference, but now that she was actively looking for it, it had hidden itself.

She walked up to her, studying the statue closer, meticulous looking it over. Starting with the smaller details, as that was what her mind would have noticed subconsciously, she thought. Studying her right hand she took again note that it seemed to be gripping something, ‘her wand maybe’, she tough looking it over. If she didn’t know that it she was looking at a petrified person, she would have been impressed in the many details that sprung out of the stone.

There were some small groves that she had concluded to be scars that had healed a long time ago. As she had to work with just observing the outer shell, she couldn’t make out if it was just on the surface or if there had been deeper wounds underneath. Letting go of Bella’s hand she looked further up the arm that was connected to it, still covered by the sleeves of her dress that had been on her since she had been petrified.

She had asked the headmaster about it and he said that when she was found. It seemed that whatever turned her to stone didn’t touch the clothing that she was wearing. In all that time he had decided that it would be indecent to remove them, stating that consent was difficult to get from a stone statue. He had placed a charm on them so they would stay intact, not wanting time to decay them from her body.

She trailed her palm lightly over the dress feeling the large amount of strings that held it together. ‘It must have taken a group of people to get her into this dress’, she tough, ‘or magic’, was her second thought.

Pressing down with a bit of force she concluded that the stone underneath the clothes was still there. Still not finding what she had noticed entering the chamber, she took a step back, looking her ones over.

Seeing it suddenly. Her eyes, they had turned from grey to brown, and it seemed as if they had been polished, reflecting the light that the flames threw her. It was as if someone replaced the grey eyes with a pair smoky quartz gem.

No time to lose she pulled out her wand and started analysing the area around the eyes for traces of magic. The results came up empty, there was none to be detected. Disappointed from that, she pointed her wand at the left eye and repeated the charms.

A small flicker of magic sprung out of her wand. Reacting with something inside of the statue. It seemed that the formally lifeless statue had a small source of magic inside of it now.

Hermione took a step back in excitement, progress, for the first time since she had started the project all those months back. A spark that lit up the nearly endless void she had been searching in. She now knew that something she had tried in the past had worked, she didn’t know just yet what but it was a start.

She just had to run through the list of spells, charms, potions that she had tried. It was going to be a long process she thought. But now there was at least a goal in sight. She knew that something had worked. Her work hadn’t been pointless, she though looking over to the desk that had been her working space. On it where a myriad of books and scrolls berried underneath a small mountain of notes.

‘This is going to take a while.’ She thought letting out a sigh, glancing back to Bellatrix.

“Don’t worry, I’m going to solve this,” she said to the statue, convinced that she could do it.

-

Hermione looked up from her desk, conjuring a small charm she found out that midnight had come and went. The small lines told her that it was around two in the morning. She had spent the last couple of days going over the spells one by one and waiting for any effect they might have.

Stretching out she looked over to Bellatrix, who still stood there like an angel that had her hand up. She still was impressed by the beauty that was displayed just a few feet from her. It reminded her of the times that her parents had taken her to the British national museum of fine arts when she had been a small girl.

She had been so impressed by the skill the sculptors of years gone past. They had tried so hard to display the beauty of the human condition. And credit where credit is due, they had gotten close. Some of the works of art are simply exceptional copies of human figures, but the woman that stood in this dungeon was miles and miles away from what they ever could have done.

She put down her pencil and decided that there would probably be no more progress without a night’s sleep. Not wanting to travel all the way from here to the Gryffindor she swivelled her chair round facing the empty part of the chamber. Lifting her wand she conjured a bed there.

She got up and took a few steps towards the bed.

“Seems that you have a roommate now.” She said out loud.

“…”

“You’re right it is late, I’ll stay quiet”

“…”

Getting to her new bed, she quickly send a message to the youngest Weasley, Letting her know where she was and that the boys, under no circumstances should come and get her. She would meet them the next morning at lunch. Having dealt with that she turned in, not bothering to take her clothes off, she had already discarded her shoes and sweater hours earlier. Pulling her blanket over her she called out to the back of Bella’s head.

“Goodnight Bella.”

She turned over and fell quickly asleep, the warmth of the room was cosy and for ones she didn’t hear the wind howl outside of the castle. There was a soft crackle from the fire lighting the room but nothing else made a noise.

-

Waking up she looked up at the dungeons ceiling, for a moments she wondered where she was. It had been the first time since a while that she hadn’t woken up in her own bed in the Gryffindor tower or the castles library. Closing her eyes and opening them again she saw no change, ‘it must be real then’ she concluded. Looking over she saw that the fires from last night had simmered down to glowing embers that provided some light.

The atmosphere that had been created by the lighting and the smell of smoke reminded her of the summer before her fourth year. She had just been dropped off by her parents on the end of the Weasleys driveway, spending the rest of the summer with them. Telling her parents goodbye and leaving them to talk to Molly and Arthur, she made her way to the Burrow. It might have been her third most favourite place in the world, behind Hogwarts and her own house.

She had arrived late at night as it had been built in a remote corner of Britain and was seemingly difficult to locate by her parents. Eventually she had taken the map and given directions, she suspected that the Burrow had a similar charm put on it that repelled curious muggles.

She had walked into the kitchen and had been greeted by the twins and Ginny. They were reading some books by the fire. Ginny had then shown her around calling out for Ron that he had a visitor. Ron had been ecstatic that she had been able to make it she remembered. A few moments later she saw that Harry had also stumbled out of Ron’s room. Exchanging pleasantries she followed Ginny to her room. She had been boarded with Ginny as the other Weasleys had returned home and where occupying their old rooms.

Ginny’s room was nice, more spacious than she had expected from the outside, wondering if there had been a few magical charms placed in the house she put her suitcase under the bed before returning downstairs. Molly had made her a hot cocoa, which she accepted settling in one of the open armchairs. Joined by the boys they had talked till the early morning, she had fallen asleep in the chair. The next morning when she had woken up, she noticed that somebody had put a blanket over her, letting her sleep undisturbed. She had then also smelled the smoke coming off the glowing embers in the fireplace.

Stretching her arms she sat up in the bed that she had made last night. Wondering how late it was she saw that the house-elves had brought some breakfast to the dungeon, making sure that no student in Hogwarts was forgotten.

There was a plate with toast and bacon, some cereal and they had also placed the daily prophet and new quibbler next to it. Glancing at the frontpage she could see that the ministry had started to tighten its securities. Diagon ally would be patrolled permanently after a couple of disappearances of shop keepers, reading closer she discovered that it had been Florian and the book store’s owner.

“I hope that the twins keep themselves safe.” She utter opening up the paper and reading its contents. It took her a little while before she had finished reading between the lines and propaganda to figure out what was happening. It seemed that He-who-must-not-be-named had gathered his forces in Wales, as it was there that most of the destruction of the death eaters had taken place.

He could also be hiding somewhere else but she knew that moving large groups of giants and the other horrors that made up his legions would be a difficult task. She concluded that he probably saw it pointless to move from his location as he was very much dug in there.

It was also in Wales where most of the Pure-blood families had their estates, having lobbied quite hard when the secrecy law came in effect to let them sell their lands and move to Wales. They had effectively bought up most of it. The few muggles that lived there had received a special status from the Ministry. Where in the rest of Britain it was frowned upon to put up some quite aggressive muggle repelling charms, in combination with several other measures that ensured that they couldn’t get close to any of the Houses those families had put up.

The quibbler in contrast took a far lighter tone on the news than the Daily Prophet, it made note of the disappearances as an act of the mysterious Felstower, which was in their words, a illusive being that occasionally transferred some people trough time. Discarding the notion that those would actually exit she turned to the puzzle pages, which was her favourite part of the magazine. It featured a few magical crossword puzzles and so on, but it also contained some muggle puzzles. She had asked Luna last year if it would be possible that those could be added to the magazine, as it had been the unofficial paper of Dumbledore’s Army. To her delight, the next issue had featured them and had since. Making her way through breakfast she filled in the medium difficulty sudoku puzzle.

Having finished her breakfast and almost solving the puzzle, she made a mistake early on and had noticed too late. She looked up to the statue that was still standing still as stone in the middle of the dungeon.

“Good morning Bellatrix,” she said standing up from her desk where she had enjoyed her food.

“I’m sorry that I have to leave you already,” she went on putting on her shoes and fetching the sweater that had been thrown on the floor last night.

“…”

“But I told the Ginny and the guys that I would meet them for dinner, and I can’t let them wait can I now?” she went on not letting the silence come between them.

“Well see you later,” she said walking past her to the exit. Turning to look her in the face for the first time today, she noticed that the brown in her eyes had seemed to be becoming more transparent. Like it wasn’t just a polished stone but a more translucent gem. ‘Must be the spell working slowly,’ she thought, ‘good to know that even if I don’t find the right spell, it is doing it on its own, slowly but it is doing it.’

Turning on her heels she stepped through the door that connected the dungeons with the hallway outside of the headmasters office, he had moved it there so Hermione could come and go as she pleased.


	4. Progress report

“So miss. Granger have you made any progress?” Dumbledore asked her.

She was still a little uncomfortable sitting across from the Headmaster in his office, even though he had made it more comfortable there was still an unspoken respect that was demanded from him. The large gallery of Headmaster portrait the had fallen silent and where looking at her didn’t help as well.

“I think we are making some,” she started thinking how she would explain the transformation that had happened to the eyes in the statue. “at least there has been some changes in the statues magical potential. Where in the beginning there was no sign that there was any kind of magic potential, there is now a small kindle of magic present. I think that there might be a chance that miss. Black might unpetrify completely, there seems to be some kind of reactions happening inside of her. which in turn seems to slowly change the stone to something else.”

“Hmm,” Dumbledore said, seemingly thinking over what she had just told him. “And the transformation you told me about, where they spontaneous?

“I don’t believe so professor, I think it is the delayed effect of one of the spells or charms that I tried. I am currently running through the list and reconsidering them one by one, trying to figure out which has the most potential of lifting the petrification that was put on miss. Black.”

He seems to be mulling the new information over ones more, stroking his beard absentmindedly.

“Could you provide a list of those spells and charms to my office tomorrow, miss. Granger?” he then asked. “I would like to go over them myself, not that I don’t have the upmost respect for your research, but there has been too little innovation in this field. Before my eventual passing I would at least like to contribute a bit more to the wizarding world.”

“Of course professor,” she told him, “I’ll have them ready post-haste.”

“Thank you miss. Granger, that will be all then, off to bed with you.” He said standing up and walking to one of the many bookcases that decorated the room.

She had turned to exit the office when she noticed one of the books that laid open, ‘The Darkest of all arts and their consequences,’ the chapters title read. She had seen that text somewhere before she thought before exiting the Headmasters chambers.

-

Progress had been slow for the last month, Hermione though. It might have just been because of when the eyes changed it was near instantaneous, stone one day and brown and shiny the next. Now though almost two months later there had been little change. Bellatrix’s eyes had been the only part of the statue that had been affected by the mystery spell.

She had poured over her research and had been able to widdle it down to about twelve spells. All of which did more or less the exact same thing. They all had been developed concurrently by a few groups of witches and wizard around the tenth century before Christ in Greece.

Reading up on the time period she discovered that there had been some troubles between the local deities, and had started to introducing magical creatures into the area. They had taken the time and had found ways of un-petrifying other witches and wizards when they had been turned to stone for a short amount of time. They had pondered that any time after five days was more or less a death sentence.

They had been able to stretch that time to about eight days with the introduction of wands during the third century BC. But even then it was highly doubtful that a person would recover. The process of petrification they had encountered descripted the snuffing out of the magical flame that burned within every wizard and witch. She couldn’t really disagree with that, when she had first seen Bellatrix as a statue there was no magic she was able to detect. The magic force that was within her had been snuffed out, as the ancient Greek texts told her.

But she had some hope though, Bella wasn’t anymore just a lifeless statue. She had recovered to mostly stone statue with semi-transparent eyes containing a miniscule amount of magic within. The problem was that the spells where developed in Greece around two to three thousand years ago, and the sources that talked about them had not been translated from the ancient Greek that they had been written in.

Luckily the Hogwarts library contained next to all the magical books also a few muggle books, including an ancient Greek to English dictionary. She had spent the last week translating meticulous the spell book that she had found on them. It was an old copy of “Greek Spell Development during the Early Iron Age.”

There had been little documentation of the delayed effect of the spell, it seemed that if the time had passed they would give up and place them in tombs, as they believed them to be death.

This however left her with a problem. As Bellatrix had been a stone statue for the past sixteen- almost seventeen years, she was really the only example of what effect the spell might have. Working on a person who has been stone for such a long time.

“I’m not giving up on you.” She told Bellatrix, knowing full well that she might be able to understand her.

“…”

“You’ll see, I’ll get you out of this.” She promised, not knowing how long it would take, but she knew that she couldn’t five up on her now. She had made more progress with her than any other wizard had in the past.

Turning to face her desk her hopeful attitude took a bit of a hit, the stacks of parchment, translated pieces of the book and several cups of half-filled cold coffee. This is going take a while, she thought sitting down, reading over several notes that she had made about the translations.

-

‘Darkness.’

…

‘There was something else,’ she though. The opposite of this, she had known.

…

‘Was there something else?’

…

“hello” she tried to say, noting happened.

…

‘Silence,’ she at least had that.

It seemed strange, the silence. Like it didn’t fit.

…

A point of grey started to play at the edge of her vision, something different in the void of darkness that had encompassed her for what seemed to be forever.

…

“…I’ll get you out of this…”

‘What had that been?’

‘Was there something else here?’

…

She would have to wonder on that…

-

Time passed and the end of the year was approaching, Hermione wasn’t really looking forward to the exams at the end of the year. This time it wasn’t because she didn’t prepare enough or because she was not at the top of her class, a position she had had for the last three years and she wasn’t planning on losing it, but because she would rather spend her time with Bellatrix.

She was still very much a statue but the Greek spells that she had translated had started taking effect. The tips of her hair had started to destone and had started to frizzle. The amount of magic that she had been able to sense within her had grown slowly.

She had spend a lot of time in the dungeon, but the time that she spend on helping Bella had decreased majorly. There were some moments in which she regretted returning the time turner, it would have given her enough time to combine studying, doing classes and figuring out how to turn somebody back from stone.

But for the moment she would have to spend some of her research time studying the current lesson material, ‘instead of advancing the wizarding world by innovation ancient spells.’ She thought, trying to focus on advanced Arithmancy. It was in essence just mathematics but you would play more fast and loose with it. But she had been staring at the page on newly ancient differentials. She needed a break she decided.

Getting up she walked towards an armchair that had been added to the ever expanding list of furniture that had been popping up in the dungeon. It had all started when Dumbledore had conjured up a pair of chairs, her own additions had been a desk, a table to store extra books and parchment on, a bookcase, bed and now a set of comfortable armchairs. She had reasoned that if there had only been one armchair it wouldn’t be fair, ‘what if she suddenly got better and there was only one chair for people to sit in? Didn’t feel right,’ she though placing both of the chair next to one another.

Settling down the looked over to Bellatrix, wondering what had happened to her to be in this state. She had been able to run out almost all the magical beasts and creatures that could turn people to stone, and most spells that she had found that could attain the same results worked in a different way. Bellatrix had been turned to solid stone, while those spells generally turned the outside to stone, leaving a stone shell that if not treated quickly enough the affected person would rot away inside of it. Not a fate she would wish on her own worst enemies, or at least most of them.

Reaching for a new warm cup of coffee she focused again on Bellatrix. Not a full stone statue anymore like she had been all that time back at the end of September. Her eyes had regained their unpetrified look, it still looked like it was made of glass and there was still no one looking through them, which was wonderful.

She had spent many hours late at night staring at her own reflection in them. Wondering what was going on behind them, wondering if the longevity of the statue status had slowed her perspective on time down. She knew, from her experience, that time was more stretched out the longer she spend being stone. Her vision had also darkened over that time, she had been able to see but it had seemed as if there had been a thick grey mist over her vision at the end.

Hermione sighed, she wished that she could just reach out and tell her that she was going to be fine, as she had promised. It would just take a while is she couldn’t figure out how to speed the process up.

“You’re really something.”

“…”

“You’re lucky that you’re so pretty.”

“…”

“I know right, took the words rights out your month.” Talking to a statue, she might have studied for a little too long. At least she had spend her time in the presence of a beautiful woman. It wasn’t the first time that she had though that, Bellatrix had really been a redeeming factor in the fact that she had spend most of her time down here in the dungeon.

“Like would it be insane to assume that at some point a witch or wizard would have invented something that sped up time. Like they mastered traveling back in time, how difficult would it have been to accelerate time locally.” She had taken up the habit of voicing out her ideas, it seemed to make more tangible.

“You know what? I’m gonna do that,” she declared standing up, approaching the statue. She was now looking in Bella’s eyes, she could see the dark brown eyes staring back. At least it looked like it, it was more comparable with a million yard stare. She was still wondering what was going on behind those eyes.

-

Her vision had changed a lot in the past few, the greyness that she had noticed not that long ago had transformed massively. There were now distinct dark and light area that where filling her vision.

There was still the trouble of having one of her sense work, it was highly focused in on what she could see. She wasn’t sure which other ones she had but she felt that sight was not the only one she could possess.

There it was again, she saw a dark spot pass past her vision again. It seemed that the spot was something that moved occasionally around her vision. She didn’t know what it was but it was the only variation that she had in her endless cycle of just some dark sports on the top of her vision and a grey spot right in front of her.

She had become quite found of the spot. It had appeared again recently and it was now blocking some of the lighter parts of bottom of her vision.

But now there was something different about the spot, she was able to see something else. She still wasn’t sure what she was looking at but now she could see that it’s edges had a brown tone to them.

That was new at least, but the next moment they had disappeared again. That did seem to happen a lot, shadows appearing and disappearing or they would stick around for a long time.

‘Let’s hope it reappears soon,’ she thought voicing it to the void.

-

Talking to the ministry was difficult during times of peace, but when there was a war going on it was neigh impossible to get to talk to anyone there. She had submitted a request almost two weeks ago to the department of mysteries, inquiring about time. There had been no further contact after that point, and she was wondering if they had just ignored the letter.

“Hey, Hermione, look out.” She heard someone say, not taking any chances she ducked under the breakfast table.

Poof.

A large packet dropped on the table next to her plate, which lifted up from the impact on the table. She looked up and saw Ron studying the packet closer, having pulled up the label that had been attached. He seemed to be confused at what it had said, as he was currently looking curious at her.

“What does it say.” She asked him as she got up from under the table.

“It’s from the department of Mysteries,” he told her, “I didn’t know that you were on talking terms whit them. Like we blew up their workspace.”

“I had some questions for them Ronald,” she revealed, tearing away the brown packing paper that covered the heavy box that sat at her seat now.

It revealed a shoebox size wooden box. There was a label burned into the side of it. Declaring that it’s content where of a dangerous nature.

“What did you ask them?” Harry asked her reading the marking on the outside of the box.

“I had asked them some informative questions, in relation with my project.” She told them, looking if the package had a letter attached.

Touching the box, a letter appeared in her hand. It read;

‘Dear Miss. Granger

Your inquiry into the existence spells of or charms that accelerate the flow of time was a surprise to us. We therefore apologize if this letter and package attached has reached youth in unwelcome times.

We also would like you to be aware that this letter is only visible for you, for others

The contents of the box that was delivered should only be viewed by you, your headmaster Dumbledore and miss. Black. We must implore that you follow these and any other warnings that have been listed in this letter.

The box that this letter is attached too contains the following items;

  1. A small golden clock watch.
  2. A set of copper bars.
  3. A silver net.
  4. A time turner.



The instructions for how the device works are included in the box.

Again our apologies are offered if this package reaches you in unwelcome times.

Your most obedient servant,  
Saul Croaker.’


	5. Talking moon

The package that the department of Mysteries had send had proven to be very helpful, Hermione decided. The box that they had send had been magically altered, there was a undetectable expansion charm cast on it, which hid the large interior.

The only thing that gave away what was inside of it was its weight. It weight a ton and no charm could make it levitate, eventually Ginny and Luna offered their help carrying it down to the dungeon. Harry and Ron had been excused, they had a divination class to go too.

“When I said I’ll help you get it down to the dungeon, I didn’t expect it to be carried halfway across the caste Hermione.” Ginny said as they approached the Headmasters stairwell.

“Applejacks,” Hermione told the stone statue that moved out of their way, before addressing Ginny’s concerns, “I know it is a long way but we’re almost there, just up these stairs and then trough the door and down the hall.”

Ginny looked already more relieved knowing there was going to be and end to carrying the heavy box. Luna was silent during the entire walk, occasionally trying to walk into one of the side corridors when she wasn’t paying attention. She seemed to be not entirely interested in getting the box to it’s final location, but she had been wanting to visit the statue as soon as Hermione had mentioned it to her.

She had been a huge help in the early days providing a long list of magical creatures that might be able to petrify others. Looking over it Hermione had eliminated about sixty present of the creatures because they didn’t exist. But the remaining frothy provided five that she hadn’t been able to identify herself. She had also given her a list of contacts that where located across the continent, the more helpful thing that Luna had done, Hermione concluded.

Even though the contacts hadn’t been able to deliver any solutions to her problems, but they had been able to rule out a bunch of option. She had learned that the last living basilisk in the wild had moved its territory from the Baltic states closer to the black sea basin. And that the descendants of medusa had moved from mainland Greece to one of the islands that was granted to them by the magical Greek government. She had even been able to make contact with them for one letter. It had read;

‘Dear Miss, Granger

About you inquiry into our family, we must disappoint you. The last time one of our kind has set foot on your island was when the roman empires flag was still flown proudly over it. We haven’t even to the northern coast of the continent since she mid eighteen hundreds.

We also must disappoint you on your quest of unpetrifying your mate. We have been cursed to turn others into stone when they look us in the eyes. The gods have however made it impossible for us to retain any knowledge about turning that process around.

With the utmost regards,

Nicesipolis Argead’

Walking trough the door that connected the hallway outside of the headmasters office and into the dungeons. She noticed that Luna had refocused, paying close attention now completely different from moments before.

She was looking closely at the doorway that connected the two places, “This must be the work of a Wracksput,” she said looking away and carrying the box further in.

Ginny shrugged and followed her lead till they reached the chamber that contained Bellatrix. Hermione had purposefully left the lights out so there was only a soft glow from the embers that where still glowing.

“Blimey is this how you work here?” Ginny asked when they had placed the box down. Ginny had stretched her back and was looking around taking note of the darkness. Luna however had started approaching the statue in the dark.

“Luna, could you wait for a moment?” Hermione said holding up her wand and relighting the fires behind the statues, letting Bella’s face in shadows. The outline was now visible.

“That’s strange.” Luna said when she could see the statue from up-close. “There seem to be a bunch of Nargles hanging around her but they aren’t doing anything. Almost like they are frozen.” She concluded putting on her Spectrespecs. Again looking for an explanation the youngest Weasley offered a shrug and little more, she didn’t seem to know what her friend was on about but it didn’t bother her as much.

“Luna you know that Nargles aren’t real?” Hermione asked her approaching Luna.

“That’s fine Hermione, I know what is real and these Nargles are definingly frozen.” She gestured at the area around Bellatrix’s midriff. “But,…” Luna trailed off when she looked up to Bella’s eyes.

“That’s…” She was now looking in the Brown eyes of Bellatrix, her hands fell to her sides and she stared absentmindedly into the statues eyes.

When she spoke next, her voice sounded different. “What’s happening? What’s going on.” Luna said slowly with her voice pitched up a bit.

“Luna are you alright?” Ginny asked her best friend walking over from the desk that she had been sitting on.

“Who’s Luna?” Luna asked turning round, Still talking slowly.

Hermione and Ginny had started to panic from that moment, something had possessed Luna and was now using her to speak for itself.

Hermione quickly cast a detection spell on Luna looking for any kind of dark spell that might have taken control of her. When she read out the results it surprised her a bit. There was no spell on her neither was she possessed, it was more like something was compelling her to talk. Feeding her the thoughts and Letting Luna decide if she was going to say them.

“That would be me,” Luna said to no one in particular. She was still staring into the statues eyes.

“Oh,” Luna said slowly.”

-

Time had moved for her, the shadow that she saw moving from the sides of her view had sped up a lot. She was finally able to see the differences between some of the colours. She could see that when the shadow appears the room turns bright orange, and when she was about to leave the room would look red.

She had taken the time to think, she wasn’t in the void anymore she was now living in a place where she was looking trough a few feet trouble glass. There was still a barrier, but now she could observe a bit more.

She had also discovered that she couldn’t hear anything. It had been a hard couple of days when she realised. Knowing that she used to be able to hear anything but now there was a pressing silence that she hadn’t noticed till now.

Today had been different though. For the first time that she had been looking out into the room, a shadow entered but they didn’t turn on the fires. There where now three different figures that where moving around.

Neither of them turned the orange glow back on. They where moving around the place where she was used to seeing the shadow stay during the day.

Now though one of them was approving, it was still too dark to be able to see anything else. She could have sworn that there had been a light spot that moved on top of the of the figure. Suddenly the room lit up bright orange

There was a girl standing in front of her.

There were a few girls standing in front of her, she realised. Suddenly being able to look a lot clearer trough the glass wall than she had before.

Trying to look for any details she saw the blonde-haired girl look up.

Suddenly she was looking at a statue. There where sounds around her now. ‘What the hell is going on?’ she thought.

“What’s happening? What’s going on.” She asked, the first questions that she could think of. She could hear herself say it. That wasn’t her voice. She could hear now, that was something new. The world was a loud place, having spend the last eternity in silence she was mildly surprised at the sound.

She looked over the statue and recognised herself. ‘I’ve been turned into a statue,’ she thought.

“Luna are you alright?” a panicked voice asked. She tuned around and saw two girls standing behind her. The redhead seemed to have spoken and she was approaching.

“Who’s Luna?” she asked the girls. They seemed to become more and more panicked. The longer she talked.

“That would be me.” A voice much closer to her said, she tried to figure who said it. Before she realised that the person she was talking trough had said something.

“Oh,” she said.

-

Hermione thought back to the morning earlier. She had been able to talk to Bellatrix and for the first time she had responded. They had been able to talk for a few minutes before she was called back into the statue. Luna theorised that the magic that was inside of the statue had ran it’s course. Like a battery that was charging slowly over the past couple of months, she had depleted her resources over the course of talking trough Luna.

That had been an enormous leap forward, Bellatrix had been the first person that had been proven to be surviving petrification after sixteen years. She also learned that Bellatrix had been watching her for the past couple of months, since her eyes had been destoned.

She had also noted that her memories had been mostly gone, the only things that she sure of was her name and that she wasn’t always a statue.

Hermione had taken a myriad of notes, writing down everything that Bellatrix said. She now knew more from the experience of a petrified person than any other expert on the subject. She had send a letter to Dumbledore that she needed to have a meeting as soon as possible. He had replied that he was free at ten that evening.

She was currently bundling her notes she had taken since Bellatrix’s eyes had changed. She could now throw out the useless notes because the spell she had adapted had proven to work. She didn’t even have to wait for Bellatrix to completely change back before she could test it, Bellatrix herself had been able to tell her that the spell worked.

Getting up too leave she walked up to the statue and waved goodbye to Bella, as she now knew that she had the ability see. She didn’t want to leave the woman alone, she had gotten attached to the statue before this point. But now she had talked with the woman inside the statue, her appreciation for her grew only larger.

“Goodnight Bellatrix, see you tomorrow.” She told her. walking out the room, she waved her wand and lowered the fires leaving a red glow flood the room. She looked back ones more before she left through the door and walked straight on into Dumbledore’s office.

“Good evening miss Granger,” Dumbledore said levitating a cup of tea toward her when she took a seat, “you asked to see me? Have there been any considerable advances in her case?”

“We managed to contact her.” Hermione blurted out putting the bundle of parchment on his bureau.

“You managed to make contact.” The headmaster said slowly, in a tone of disbelief.

“We did.” Hermione reiterated, letting her shoulders fall. They had tensed up since Luna-as-Bellatrix had spoken. It had only gotten tenser when she had gone over her notes and started putting an outline together how to deal with long-term petrification witch couldn’t be dealt with in the usual way.

She had now officially succeeded the other specialist in her field, if she got her paper published she would be on the forefront of any new discoveries. And all of that had been tanks to her being curious about a name on a map, standing still in a place she wasn’t supposed to be.

“Miss granger?” Dumbledore spoke, wonder in his voice. It was something she hadn’t heard before. It was like he had learned something new for the first time in a long while.

“Have you talked about this to anyone else?” Dumbledore was sounding exiting. He had stood up and was walking to his backwall and looking in it for a particular book, pulling it out turned out to be an old notebook.

Back at his desk he turned the first page and tapped with his wand on a chapter title that was in the table of contents. The note book grew considerably when he turned over that page. “I put my backlog into this book.” He told Hermione, “It’s easier to look trough than going to the library, don’t tell madam Prince that I said.” He implored her.

Turning the pages she was able to take a closer at the older wizards notes. They had been messy in the beginning of him turning trough but now they where draw in a beautiful shorthand she surmised.

“Now you said that made contact, would you please explain what you mean with that?” he asked his wand hovering over an empty page.

“Well this morning…” she started off, not leaving out one detail even if it seemed to be not of any kind of importance, but Dumbledore never wavered in his notetaking. He never stopped her, letting her run trough her day up to the point that Bellatrix had again retreated into the statue.

“So, when Luna looked into her eyes she was able to speak through her?” he asked, looking over his notes to see if he had them right. The page that he had started was now filled by a wonderful amount of glyphs and symbols that Hermione didn’t recognize, they must have been an invention of the Headmaster.

“That’s right professor. When she looked in her eyes, Bellatrix was able to experience the world trough Luna. It was like Bella had possessed her, but Luna claims that it was like having two people trying to fly the same broom. Not one of them had had full control over what they would say, Bellatrix had taken to apologise to Luna before taking the lead and answering Hermione’s questions. Ginny Weasley had occasionally shimmed in to ask one or two questions. But those where mainly out of concern for her friend, when Luna then told her that she would probably be fine after Bellatrix left, she shut up. I wrote the whole transcript down if you would like to read it.” She told him.

“That’s impressive miss Granger.” He said. “And all this was because of the spell you found around the Mediterranean?”

“That’s right.”

“Have the Greeks send over anything else over of information? Have you been able to contact them?”

“I was able to talk to them, Luna even helped me to contact the Argead dynasty. They had disappointingly little to tell us, they hadn’t been on the isle since the roman empire, and the north coast of Europe has been left untouched since the mid eighteen hundreds.”

“So they can be ruled out?”

“They had been for a while but now it can be defiantly ruled out.” Hermione said. “But that is of little importance now Professor, who or what did this to her can now be abandoned for the moment. I’ve found a spell that over time will cure her.”

“You seem confident in that,” He told her. “Has the ministry send over the construct?” He asked her.

“They did, I was planning of setting it up today but something came between that plan,” she confessed. Bellatrix contacting her was a good enough reason to put off setting that construct she thought. Dumbledore seemed to agree, as he nodded when she said it.

“I think that you made the right decision there miss Granger.” He closed his notebook, “I can assure that everything is documented in here?” he placed his hand over the parchment pile she had left on his desk.

“Everything I could think of that is connected to the statue, updates on changes, translations of the spell and a transcript of the conversation we had earlier.”

“We’ll then that will be all, If I have any question I will send for you. But for now I think that it is off to bed with you.” He waved her out of his office. He needed some time to look over the documents.

“Goodnight Professor.” She said leaving the office.

“Goodnight Granger.” Was the response she heard from inside the office before the door closed.


	6. Speeding along

Setting up the time accelerator wasn’t nearly as difficult as she had imagined, the instructions where bundled by a step by step guide, which only used pictures. It reminded her of the Ikea instructions, simple and easy to understand even when it dealt with complicated builds. She was able to put the mechanism together even before lunch had arrived that day.

“So, Bella.” She said to her, knowing that she was listening, “I’m going to start this mechanise after I recast the spell. Then time will move at twice it normal speed.” She waited a second, looking for any kind of recognition from the statue.

“…”

Bellatrix didn’t react in any way, Hermione had hoped that she would have been able to get some kind of reaction. But now she had to do with just getting the process started and waiting it out. Her predictions made her believe that at twice the speed it would still take about six to eight months before the outer layer would like to thaw. It was still too early for her to predict when Bellatrix would be completely decertified.

“Let’s get this started” she mumbled to herself.

Holding up her wand she spoke clearly; “aftó to páthos apó to thánato,” waving her wand from side to side and twirling it at the end. A glow emitted from her wand’s tip and trailed towards Bellatrix. Now she knew what to look for the saw that the light engulphed her and then slowly fading except around her eyes, there it pooled up and it seemed like it was a spark that sunk into the depths. The dark void that was visible behind the dark gemstone like eyes was, for a moment, lit up.

She could have sworn that she saw the night sky in those eyes. the light playing with the small imperfections made it so that there were a myriad of star like points. She stood there for a moment basking in the wonder of what she had seen in those eyes.

Coming back to the situation at hand she took the time turner that had been included in the package and connected it to the construct.

“Here goes nothing.” She said, taking it and twisting it round like the department of mysteries had said. Turn it halfway and then letting it loose when she placed it on its pedestal.

The time tuner kept turning, she saw with a constant speed. Never slowing down. Looking up to the statue, there was no difference. ‘Why would it?’ she thought, ‘It had taken months for the first change to happen, it would be unreasonable to assume a difference to be visible already.’

Taking a step back she sat down at her desk watching her. Time was moving slowly for her, even when for her companion it moved at twice it speed. Sitting there for about ten more minutes she became bored. As much fun as it was to look at the beautiful woman that was standing there she couldn’t do it all day. She had tried, about seven weeks into her research, she had become lost in thought looking at her.

-

Eventually she had cleared her mind and was studying the features on the statue. she had committed to memory the face and the small details that had decorated it. She noticed that there was a small dimple visible on the left cheek. Her nose reminded her of the milo of Venus, on a bit smaller. There where some laugh-lines that stretched from the comers of the mouth. Strangely not from the eyes, she wondered if the person that had been petrified had been sad.

Not showing the world what was going on inside of her. laughing loudly to distract the people around her that she wasn’t as happy as she was pretended to be. When she had asked Dumbledore about it, he had handed her the folder that contained Bellatrix’s file that the Order of the Phoenix had made up.

It described her as insane, a madwoman that had been the first lieutenant of the Dark Lord. She had acted on instinct during her time under his command. There didn’t seem to be any rime or reason for the actions she would take. They had observed that she didn’t care for anyone except the dark lord and the house Black, she had taken many procurations when interactions with Sirius Black and Andromeda Tonks. Both members of the Black family that had been shunned from the family, but she had taken a lot of flack from it.

But they had been safe since the war had started. The Tonks household had been left untouched from the actions of the war. Andromeda had been able to raise her daughter, Sirius had been left alone when he turned to the potters. She had taken special care that, even though James Potter was the enemy, Sirius had been safe.

Reading trough the file she though that she got to know the other witch better, even though she hadn’t talked to her but she could now sketch a the start of an image.

When the house elves had eventually gotten her diner, she had taken the file and was looking trough the pictures in the back. They showed the witch in a few situations where they had been able to capture her image. She looked like a deer in the headlights, but more deadly. She moved very skittery around, like she feared that if she took a misstep there was hell to pay for it.

But there was one that stood out to her. On the back of the picture in neat handwriting, there was written ‘The brightest points in the sky’ and under there in three different scripts; ‘Bellatrix, Andromeda, Narcissa.’

On the font of the picture she saw, a younger version of the woman that was standing as a statue currently feet away, Tonks’s mom and Draco’s mother. They were wearing the Hogwarts uniforms, decorated with the prefect badge on Andromeda, a duellers captain badge on Bellatrix and the house Black crest on Narcissa. They were all smiling, Bellatrix had barred her teeth and her eyes where lit up from the happiness that radiated from the group.

It had become the favourite photo of her, she was thinking about it for the longest time after that point. There had been moments that her mind had connected the laughing sisters with the statue. the first time that she had fantasised about a laughing Bellatrix statue she had needed to leave the classroom, it had been the one and only time that her mind impacted her that much. She had been blushing profusely during the remainder of the day. Thinking about how cute Bellatrix had been during her schooldays, and how the statue would look if it looked that happy.

-

The acceleration of the spell had been going on for a week now. Hermione could see that at some places the stone was smoothing out. The tips of her fingers had stared to turn to a flesh colour, they looked very pale she observed but quickly wrote it off. It had been observed in other cases that people who came back from being petrified spend a few days as very pale versions of themselves, the body needing to get used again to working at full capacity.

For now though, it was good to see that even at twice the speed the spell was working correctly. She had talked to Dumbledore about speeding the process up even further. During the week that she was observing Bella there was noting that pointing her in the direction that she couldn’t do that. He had advised to write to the department of mysteries and get their approval before she started messing with time.

She had taken a more defensive position, she hadn’t fully realised the problems she could cause with running time to fast. He had pointed out that while the spell would make short work with the petrification, it would also make short work of Bellatrix the moment she was completely back along the living, aging her quickly, maybe even killing her of high age.

She had written the letter that morning and was now sitting in the dungeon for a reply, she was trying to finish a crossword puzzle when there was a soft tap on the archway that decorated the entrance of the dungeon chamber. Standing there was Luna, she was looking curious at the time accelerator before Hermione cleared her throat she managed to capture her attention.

“Hey, Hermione.” She said walking into the chamber towards her.

“Luna, what are you doing here?” Hermione asked her.

“Well I was trying to see if the Swedish ultorn had taken residence in the eastern wing, and was walking in that direction when I observed just the most curious of sights. There was a swarm of Nargels that had been following this owl,” Luna said matter of fact, “so I just wanted to find out where they were all going. Following them I realised that we were on course for the headmasters offices. Which was strange because his letters are always delivered by phoenix. Arriving there The owl looked a bit lost. He didn’t seem to know that there was a password protection on the entranceway, so he was stuck out there. When I approached and explained that I wanted to help, he seemed to be a bit opposed to the suggestion. You can of course not blame him, I’m someone he doesn’t trust, I’m not the person that the letter is addressed to, this meant that he wouldn’t let me get close to him. I had to help him out by guessing the password that gives you access to the headmasters offices.”

“You know the password?” Hermione asked, curious how Luna had been able to know it. It was supposed to be a closely guarded secret between the headmaster, faculty and the golden trio.

“Oh, I don’t I just guessed for about ten minutes before I got it right, its like the Ravenclaw tower password only without a hint.” She answered smiling.

“Oh, that’s lucky then.” She said making a note to tell Dumbledore that his security sucked, if a student could take ten minutes to break into the headmasters office they had a problem.

“Alright, so when the entrance was finally available, you’ll never guess it, Professor Dumbledore was standing right there on his way out. I greeted him and told him about the small owl that was still sitting on the floor. But apparently the letter wasn’t addressed to him either. The owl just hopped on over to the door that is connected to this dungeon. There the letter was dropped off. Professor Dumbledore was then able to reach over and look at whom it was addressed.” She concluded.

Hermione was still going over what Luna had told her. Getting to the end of the tale she looked up again, “What happened to the letter Luna?” she asked.

“the letter?” Luna seemed surprised, unprepared for it. Like she didn’t just tell a whole story about an owl that she helped deliver a letter with.

“Yes, Luna the letter. Where is it?” she asked again.

“I placed it on you’re desk when I sat down.” Luna said pointing out a bundle of parchment sitting next to her Greek English dictionary.

“Why didn’t you say so?” she asked the girl sitting across from her.

“That wasn’t what you asked me. You asked what I was doing down here.”

Being left silent, Luna took the opportunity to take a closer look at Bellatrix. Her last interaction had made her curious about the story of how she had gotten in this situation.

Hermione had reached over to the letter when Luna interrupted her.

“So this is making time pass faster?”

“Yes, it is.” She answered, turning over the envelope.

‘Hermione Granger, Hogwarts, third floor dungeons, penultimate chamber.’

‘I wonder how they get such specific locations for these letters,’ She thought before looking at the front. There where no decorations to be found there. where most wizarding mail was delivered with wax seals this one was remarkably unmarked. It looked closer to a muggle letter than a piece of magical correspondence.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw that Luna was walking around Bella, inspecting the statue for any changes that might have happened during her time in the time accelerator. “Luna, be careful. The field where Time is being sped up is a bit bigger than you would first think.” She warned her, not wanting her to make the same mistake she had made. Her had put her fingers next to the time turner and her nails had grown a few millimetres.

Luna had looked up when she said that and nodded in understanding, she moved a bit further back. Focusing back to the envelope in her hand she ripped it open from the top and pulled out the parchment inside.

It was a single black piece of parchment. While she held it up wondering if she needed to hold it against the light there was a dark spot that appeared.

Growing bigger Hermione recognized the Department of Mysteries monogram. Letting the ink flow over the page she noticed that there seemed to be a few lines of written text appearing below the monogram.

‘Dear miss. Granger hereby do we grant you the ability to speed up the process that is currently ongoing to as quick as you see fit. We must warn you that when miss. Black is changed back completely Time will have influence over her. As a starting point would we recommend that anything over ten times the speed of time is against our advice. Also be aware that it takes an exponential amount of time for time to slow down from what speed you had brought it up too.

department of Mysteries   
Saul Croaker’

So they had answered, and they had given her permission to speed up the decertification to as quick as she wanted it. What had been predicted as taking months even years could now be done in the span of a couple of weeks.

“Luna, could you leave?” Hermione asked her when she got up.

“Hmn, that would indeed be the best coarse of action right now.” Luna said taking a last look at Bellatrix. “Look out for the Nargels though Hermione, when time is in flux they disappeared but that only means that they come back in excess when the regular run of time is restored.” And with those words, Luna left the dungeon.

“Alright then,” Hermione said out loud to Bellatrix, “Let’s get this party started.”

“…”

She reached out whit her wand and summoned the time turner from its pedestal, not wanting to be effected by the time field surrounding the construct.

Levitating the small timepiece she turned it quicker and quicker, careful to stay under the ten times restriction they had advised. She settled on seven times real-time, as seven held a special meaning in the magical world, not to speak of the magical properties that where connected to the number.

-

Bellatrix had been real tired from her last outing, she had spoken trough a girl, couldn’t recall her name at the moment, and been able to experience what living was for the first time since always in her case.

Now she had them, she noticed that her memories had been strangely quiet and absent. Leaving a hole she couldn’t quite see but knew that it was there. It was as if she was putting on a set of clothes that fit her but had gaps in unexpected places.

She also had to deal again with the dark void that surrounded her. unlike a few days earlier when she had been able to view the world around her through a trouble glass wall, she was now looking at the black.

She now also knew that the colour that surrounded her was black. This didn’t bother her as much as she had thought, she was a Black though whit that kind of name she really shouldn’t be afraid of it. Looking round for a pinpoint of light like last time had proven useless.

She now had only her new memories to focus on, she was a bit ashamed about the number of times she had played them back to herself. In the moment there had been a real sense of urgency to communicate whit the people that where helping her. At the time she was not really focusing on the girl that was heading this process.

Now she had time to reflect there had been time to look over them again, she had looked over the ginger a few times, eventually coming to the conclusion that she wasn’t her type. The brunette however had been a lot more of her taste, where there had been fear in the face of the ginger, there had been curiosity was the main actor on her face.

In the replays of the memory she had taken to slow it down and was just looking at the brunette. She knew that her memories where just her own reflection of the reality which had happened, but she was pretty sure that Hermione, she remembered the name that the girl had provided, was burned into her mind in a fashion that was pretty much perfect. She could recall the faint freckles that had dotted the cheeks of the girl. She had seen how her hair was an warm oak colour, it had been messy and tied up.

If she had been able to blush she would have at this point, ‘You’re having a crush on your healer.’ A voice in her mind said, excitingly.


	7. Trough the looking glass

Progress was good, Hermione though marking down the places of the body that Bellatrix had decertified. Most of her extremities had lost their stone like outlook, and she was sure that her fingers could be bend now without them breaking off.

Yesterday she had first tried to prod the destoned parts of Bellatrix’s statue. Surprisingly when she had pushed down on the others palm, she could depress the area a bit. It also didn’t stay dented when she lifted her fingers again.

“You’re improving quickly Bella.” She said to her, placing her pen on the desk.

“…”

“But we are going to have to slow this process down a bit. We don’t want to overshoot the end date of this experiment do we now?” A rhetorical question. She knew that the witch couldn’t answer.

The last time that they had spoken was through Luna almost three weeks ago. She didn’t want to admit it but the dungeon was too quiet, she had been accustomed to the Gryffindor common room noisiness that she had learned to ignore it. It was like the first time that she had set foot here at the start of the project.

Back then she had been uncomfortable in the silence, she had thought that she would like it. Comparing it to the silence in the school library, but that was quickly proven to be untrue. In the library there was still the background noise of the wind blowing past the caste, or the occasional creaking of the bookcases settling in their place.

Down here though there had been none of that, no wind, no settling furniture, nothing. There had been two things that made sound down here. Herself and the quiet burning of the candles that provided light down here.

Over time she had gotten used to the absence of sound down here, at one point she had noticed that she was deliberately trying to stay quiet down here. Not wanting to disturb it. She had kept that for the first month of the examination.

Dumbledore had come down and had disturbed the quiet that had settled over time. He didn’t seem to be bothered by it, and had even mentioned to her that telling Bella what she was doing might clear things up for her. He had been right, explaining her plan out loud cleared up a lot of problems she had found while writing it out.

She had since let a comfortable silence settle, not breaking it unnecessarily but often enough to not let it be a permanent thing. She had also developed to read aloud her work when she finished it, listening for any error she could discover.

There had been a couple of moments when she had struggled with some parts of the translations, she had given Bellatrix a voice. And to her credit, giving the statue a voice was a short-lived but productive time, she figured out more components of the spell than she had in the weeks before. But when she was finished, she had retired ‘Bella’s’ voice. Having no need for it any longer.

She hadn’t spend a lot of time thinking back to that time till Luna-as-Bellatrix had spoken in such a strange way. She had obviously know that she couldn’t actually do her voice, but it had been a shock that happened later, when Bellatrix had exited Luna and was back in the statue, she realised that the voice had been completely off. Her Bellatrix voice had been high-strung like Draco’s mother Narcissa, her sister, but instead it was deeper than expected. Even with limitations of Lunas voice range it stuck to the bottom.

Hermione really wanted to hear what Bellatrix’s actual voice sounded like. Wondering if it was more in the direction that Luna’s voice had gone or even in a completely new way, given that she had not used her own voice in her own body for a while.

Pointing her wand at the timepiece she motioned for it to turn slower, all the way from seven to two times real-time. the construct glowed for a moment amplifying the spell when it did it’s work. She could see that the clock hands where still speeding round and round but now it was going a lot slower. She could now read the minutes and seconds that where moving past.

“So that’s it, Bella, let’s see if you’re getting out of here in the next week.” Hermione said, hoping that her words spoke the trued. Her last projections for the end of the petrification put the date somewhere around the beginning of June, which was only three days away at this point.

“Please get out of there,” she pleaded, turning round, “just come out alive.”

-

The glass wall had returned quickly this time, it had taken less ‘time’ this time but she was glad that it was back. The void had been boring this time round. Now she knew that colours and light existed she had longed for them. Not in the way that she had been scared of it, more that she was getting fed up with it, it was boring to her.

The glass wall was now also defrosting at a quicker and quicker speed. Where first she was certain that there were several yards of the stuff in front of her. There was only a somewhat thin sliver left at the end. She could clearly see Hermione going about her business, the girl was curiously slow though, it took her far longer to do normal tasks she was able to do before.

Watching the girl go was now also more heart-breaking than before, as she had to look a lot longer at the back of her head. The locks of brown hair where mesmerising, now she had the time to commit her features to memory. She learned that her eyes looked brown under most circumstances, but when she turned to face her there was a moment, a single point in time that she could have sworn that they became beacons of gold.

She also was feeling something new, something she had not experienced since the girl. There had been feelings of warmth and cold playing round her fingers. She wasn’t sure how or why it’s was happening, but they where welcome feelings. She was now able to experience more than just looking at a bleak dungeon that was occupied by a beautiful girl for most of the day.

‘She does look beautiful,’ a voice told her.

They had been plaguing her for a while now, the voices. They were nameless objects that surrounded her. They had started to talk anytime she was looking at Hermione. They were never aggressive or  condescending, but they had been annoying her though. She had come to terms that the other girl was cute and that she had a crush on her. What she didn’t need were a bunch of voices telling her that exact thought, if she had been able to she would be punching them to shut up. But alas she couldn’t punch a voice, so that sucked.

She saw Hermione walking up slowly, as she had for the past couple of weeks, pulling out her wand and waving it round she speed herself up. There was a noticeable difference before and after her walking up.

She wasn’t sure what was happening at that moment but it was like she had gained another sense, this time it was sound. She could hear the outside world now, being freed from the monotone voices that told her that the person in charge of her rescue was hot, or attractive, or so ‘cute’. Now there was a background noise that filled the silence inside.

She had been so preoccupied that she missed most of what Hermione had said to her. Having seen her talk for the past couple of weeks she had disconnected the fact that her mouth was moving and the fact that it would make sound. Realizing that she should listen to her she tuned out the other voices and focused on the outside world. Trying to focus on what Hermione was saying.

“…out alive.” Was the only thing she caught at the end. But she was motivated by those words, ‘out alive’ that was the plan then. If Hermione told her that she should get out alive, she was committed to that plan, even though she had little control over what happened to her.

‘Getting out alive,’ what a plan.

-

Calling it a night Hermione, straighter her papers and glanced over to the person she was trying to save for the better part of the year. The progress had been noticeable. Most of the black hair that dominated the head was now appropriately affected by gravity it was now falling to the side of her head. Draping over the porcelain coloured shoulders that had become visible since yesterday. Most of Bella’s skin had come in then, it looked ghostly white but when she scanned it for damage it all seemed to be fine, taking into around the one and a half decade she had spent as a statue.

‘It will probably happen tonight,’ she though, ‘especially if you left it running at a quicker speed.’ Her mind had the right idea, as much as she wanted Bellatrix out of the petrification, she also wanted to be there when she came out it.

Feeling a tiny bit of guilt she pointed her wand at the time turner and summoned it from it’s pedestal. She knew that that would break the working of the construction, which was fine in her opinion. Weighing the options against one another. But as she held the time turner in her hand she had already made the decision.

“Goodnight Bellatrix, let’s hope that you can wake up tomorrow.” She said walking out of the dungeon. Lingering at the door she looked back one last time.

-

The door had closed a few moments ago. The dungeon had fallen silent, this time around the silence annoyed her more. As she could hear the low grumble of the torches becoming louder and louder she wanted to put them out. But if she did then there would be true silence, which she also didn’t sign up for.

“Could there be some peace and quite here!” she said.

“…”

The echo carried her voice across the dungeon, seemingly moving away from her, like the ripples in water. ‘She made a sound?’

‘How did that happen?’ she asked herself.

‘You should try it again.’ A voice said to her.

“Shut up,” could be heard far and wide. She had particularly yelled it out. Exiting that she could now talk, Bellatrix started to cackle a bit.

-

“Good morning Bella,” Hermione said pushing the door open, entering the dungeon. It had been an unexciting evening and night for her, while she had hoped that Bellatrix hadn’t turned yet, she would be lying if it would completely surprise her if she wasn’t there anymore.

Looking into the dungeon she was arrested in her tracks, the platform that had housed the statue of Bellatrix was empty.

She rushed into the dungeon, panicking about where Bella could be.

‘What if someone had moved her?’

‘Did Dumbledore move her?’

‘Had she missed a letter from the headmaster?’

These where all questions that she had asked herself, looking as a maniac around the dungeon. She missed a bundle of black hair that was had popped out from under the blanket on the bed at the far side of the room.

The bed that she had used for a couple of weeks during the winter had been occupied by someone.

It took her about five minutes before she noticed. And after that point she had frozen for another two before she could move closer. Standing still for in front of the bed she was afraid to see what had happened to Bellatrix.

While she was standing there, the mass of hair moved and turned round to face her.

“Out alive, eh?” Bellatrix said, a smile on her lips.


	8. Sleeping Beauty

“Please miss granger, could you slow down?” Dumbledore asked Hermione. She had stormed into his office, to tell the good news and everything that had happened. For the last couple of minutes there had been a waterfall of words that had flown from her mouth. She was currently recapping the events that had proceeded Luna sharing a voice with Bellatrix when the headmaster put up his hand.

“So, from what I understand, miss Black is again walking among the living?” he asked.

Collecting her thoughts she shut up for a second before she could give the answer to that question, “Yes, physically she’s walking among the living again. Which is nothing short of a miracle if I’m being honest. The fact that she no longer is made of stone after such a long time is incredible.” She concluded.

Dumbledore leaned back in his seat thinking over what Hermione had just said. “You said that she was physically back among the living, care to elaborate?”

She’d hoped that he would have let it slide for the moment. It was true that Bella had been sitting in her bed and was talking but there had been one problem that Hermione had not foreseen.

“Her memories are missing.” She said, if this information surprised the headmaster he didn’t show it, “Everything that predates the start of the experiment isn’t present in her memories to her. In her words; it was like there was a bookcase that was filled with memories, only now there where empty shelves.”

“That is inconvenient,” Dumbledore said.

“Incontinent? Sir I would say that it is a big problem, memories make up who you are, without them a person doesn’t have an identity. They wouldn’t know where they came from what their motivations are or what they want out of their life.”

“As I said, inconvenient.”

She slumped back into her chair, having not noticed that she had stood up during her speech. There had been a lot that she had to say on the topic, ranging from what the effects of having no pre-existing memories to the impersonality of Bellatrix in this stage.

She had been concerned that her behaviour would influence Bella in such a way that she would just copy her. Leaving the old Bellatrix completely behind and abandoned, replaced by the new Bella. Which would be completely unfair to her if her own memories ever would come back. Then there would be two different versions of reality for both of them. On one hand there would be the Bella that had lived in the dungeon for all of her remembered live and on the other the Bellatrix that had lived for about three decades before being turned to stone.

“I see that it of great importance to you that her memories are brought back. But at this stage we can do little more than wait and see.” Dumbledore said, pushing his half-moon glasses up the bridge of his nose. “We could also try to use Legilimency on her but I doubt that that would work on miss Black. She was an expert Occlumens during her time in the first wizard war. Even if she can’t remember her old self I would not be surprised that the barriers that she had put up earlier in her life wouldn’t still be present.”

He probably saw the glint of hope in my eyes when he said those last two sentences, if we could just extract the missing memories and show them to Bella she might just remember them by herself.

“But we would first need to find someone to preform that spell, and miss Black needs to give permission for someone to go into her mind and find those missing memories.” He told her, putting the focus on the permission that needs to be given by Bellatrix.

“But, before all that. I gave you a file on miss Black, a while ago. Have you read it?” He asked.

“I read the parts that were relevant, and I looked at the pictures that where put in the back of the file.” She told him, thinking about the brown folder that was sitting in one of the drawers of her desk.

“I’d recommend that you’d read it before moving forward with your memory recovery plan. While it would be humane to bring her back completely.” He said, waving her out of the office.

“But, Professor…” she tried.

“Read the file miss granger, and come back to me then.” The door closed and Hermione was left out in the hallway connecting the stairway down to the castle, the Headmasters offices and the door that connected down to the dungeons.

-

Bellatrix was getting agitated, she’d spend most of her time in stone observing the world permanently. She had not gotten tired at all, even forgetting that it was something that she would have to abide by. When she finally converted back to flesh and blood she had felt energetic ready to go and conquer the world.

She had a small problem with that though, she had no idea what the world meant. As she had not seen anything beyond the dungeon walls, or past the dark looming hallway that she had seen Hermione walk down numerous times. She wasn’t afraid of the dark that was present there, but she was uncertain about what was out there.

She was somewhat sure that Hermione lived out in that place, and the other two girls she remembered. Which brought the amount of living people up to a grand total of three people. She did feel that they weren’t a fair representation of the population. Thinking it over she was mostly sure that there was at least one more version walking out and about.

But that didn’t matter now, she had ran a mile round the room exited that she was able to move. Jumping up and down she had exerted a massive amount of energy in the short while after reverting back. And she had gotten tired, which exited her for a bit, it was a new feeling, but then she was annoyed because it was stopping her from moving round as she had for the last fifteen minutes.

Looking round she scanned the interior of the dungeon, she hadn’t payed it a lot of attention. She had been exited about moving so she that stood in front of her, she had seen it all before. But now she could look at the far side of the dungeon and found exactly what she had needed. There central in the room was a bed, with golden covers and a red coloured cushion.

“Why isn’t it green?” she asked, not remembering the reason for disliking the colour red, but she favoured green more.

-

It had been two days since Bellatrix had turned back from stone, and while everything was looking up Hermione was getting worried. The last time she had talked to Bella was the morning that she had entered the dungeon. The witch had been sleeping for a while now, tossing and turning.

While watching and waiting seemed to be her only options, she was growing bored. Yesterday she had written the final draft for the cure of petrification, which was laying on her desk waiting to be corrected one of the next few days. Now she was doing nothing, she couldn’t find something to distract herself whit.

‘You could read the file,’ a voice told her.

“That wouldn’t be fair to her.” she argued, out loud.

Bellatrix turned over and mumbled something before falling silent again. Hermione had held her breath, not wanting to disturb her while she was sleeping. She regularly checked up on the witch, but aside from being easterly tired there was nothing wrong with her. Bella just needed to rest before she could face the world. It might be a side-effect from the treatment, she wasn’t sure.

As Bellatrix was the only example of being de-petrified in a case where the Mandrake Restorative Draught was ineffective. Before she could say that her way definingly worked, there would need to be a lot of test on other subjects that where in a similar circumstance. She wondered if the Mediterranean ministries would allow her to try and cure some of the statues that they had in their possessions.

The tossing and turning of Bellatrix caught her attention ones more, she looked so at peace when she was asleep. She hadn’t noticed it on the statue before but now the contrast between her peaceful and asleep, and the forced peaceful look that she’d sported on the statue.

She looked back at the desk where the file lay, quietly gathering dust. The temptation to just go and grab it was growing bigger and bigger. Could she forgive herself for going through the history that even Bella didn’t remember, ‘it is wrong, what if she didn’t want me looking into her past?’

‘Has she told you that?’ the voice egged her on.

“She couldn’t have told me that, she’s been asleep for the better part of her being able to move around again.” She said, trying to suss out the voice.

Bellatrix turned over again, it had been the fifth time in just as many minutes. She wondered if the hibernation that Bella had slipped in was wearing off. Straitening her back, she sat up and looked hopeful, wanting the witch to wake up. It would be pointless if she was able to turn people back from stone, and then they would go in a permanent coma.

When there was no change to be seen she picked up the Daily prophet from that morning, she had reserved it in the case that there would be no difference in Bella’s new situation.

Eyeing the front page she saw that the minister had stepped down in favour of Rufus Scrimgeour, he was a collage that Shacklebolt worked with. He had always spoken admirable about Rufus. He seemed to be a decent and capable replacement of Fudge, ‘but most people would have made a better minister than Fudge,’ she tough.

There was also some news about the movements of He-Who-Should-Not-Be-Named’s forces. They were heading north, moving up to Hadrian's Wall. Still a long way away from Hogwarts but he was moving closer, which was a bit concerning. “Let’s hope that he doesn’t plan on attacking the castle.” She said opening the paper, missing the smile that was now on Bellatrix’s lips by just a fraction of a second.


	9. The statue talks

Waking up Bellatrix opened her eyes. The stone ceiling greeted her sombrely. Looked over to the desk on the far side of the room from her, hoping that the witch was still present. At a glance it seemed more like someone left a bunch of brown curls on a desk there. A second look granted her a more clear vision of who had put their head down on the desk.

Hermione seemed to have fallen asleep right where she was sitting, having not even taken the time to get more comfortable. From her vantage point it was difficult to take in any more details. If she wanted to inspect her saviour, she would have to leave the warm and comfortable bed, which wasn’t really her plan right now.

Debating her options she looked around the dungeon again, now with the attention span of a somewhat well-adjusted adult, she was able to take in the room as it was. Last time it had registered in her mind as an oval room that she could quickly run around without having to leap over stuff. Now she saw that there were some details that decorated the walls, and that there where pillars behind which scales of fire where placed. They provided the light and warmth that flooded the dungeon with the orange tint.

It was soothing, just bright enough for someone who had just woken up to see around, but not too bright to disturb her vision. The longer she looked at the fires the brighter they became, and looking away a bunch of light spots stayed in her field of view before they faded away. She wondered what the time was down here, it might be night because the girl was sleeping, but she had not found a single hour work or mechanism that could tell her the time in the first look over the room since she had woken up.

She contemplated throwing something at her companion in the dungeon to ask her what the time was, but reconsidered when the noticed that there was little she could throw. And not wanting to get rid of her pillow or duvet she decided to do noting till she could be convinced to leave her bed.

Putting herself in a stalemate between herself, she laid down to see if something would change between now and the future. She sulked back in the comfortable and warm shell that the bed provided. Turning on her sided she looked Hermione ones over before closing her eyes ones again, ‘who ever said that you couldn’t take a nap right when you wake up was wrong.’

-

There was something making noise Hermione notices waking up from her desk, she’d fallen asleep there not wanting to leave the other witch alone. Since she had de-petrified Bellatrix had spend all of her time in her own bed. The only thing that was communicated between them was: ‘out alive eh?’

There was the noise again, she sat up straight and looked where she had left Bellatrix resting.

She first didn’t notice any changes. The duvet was still hiding the form of Bella, from her perspective she could see the back of her head. The long dark curls spread out over the edge of the bed. But then she noticed a movement on the far side, a quick flash preceded the noise of a small rock hitting the wall.

“Bella? Are you awake?” she asked, whispering at first not wanting to disturb the silence that was still hanging thick on the dungeon. The flashes stopped abruptly, ‘She must have heard me, Hermione reasoned.

“What?” a foreign voice called out to her, louder than she had expected. It sounded more husky than she had imagined, in all her time she had spend with the statue she had taken the voice of Tonks and had shifted it to a lower octave. But she had been wrong, Bella’s voice was commanding of respect and deeply flirtatious.

There was a noticeable shift in the bed that Hermione was not prepared for, seeing the witch move was new to her. there was still the expectation there that Bella would just go rigid again, she thought.

Making eye contact with the woman that had been put in her care she saw something new in her eyes, not the faded thousand mile stare that had appeared during the treatment, not the tiredness that she had been able to glimpse at for a moment two days ago when she had found the witch in the bed, no this was different. There was a fire burning, a force of magic had lit a small spark in the depts of the brown eyes that decorated the other woman’s face.

Lost in though she didn’t notice that she was spoken too for a few seconds. She first saw the mouth moving before the sound reached her ears.

“Hello, are we all here?” Bella asked, still laying spread out over the bed. Claiming it as hers she had planted herself on top of it.

“YES, yes. I’m here.” She blurted out as soon as she had understood what was said.

“Remarkable.” That was all the witch had to say. She leaned back and relaxed on her back staring up at the sealing.

Hermione hesitated for a second, not sure if she wanted to interrupt the woman or if she wanted to observe her for a while. Her pondering was broken through when Bellatrix started to speak again.

“So, you solved the problem of long term petrifaction?” the question was innocent enough if not there was an impressed tone that underlined the end of the question.

Silence fell for a second as she gather her thoughts, ‘Had she solved the problem? She had merely laid the different text next to one another and compared them. There had also been the difficulty of translating them but that was minimal effort that had been spend there.’

Seeing that Bellatrix was still laying on her back but now had turned to face her. She was still waiting for an answer, seemingly studying her own face.

“You could say that I did…” she said carefully, not wanting to overstate what she had done.

Humming in agreement the witch turned to face the ceiling, apparently having exhausted her direct line of questioning. It stayed silent for a moment, both of them sharing the space in coexistence.

“Do you know who I am?”

The question was very silent, almost passing unnoticed. It had left Bellatrix’s lips as a whisper and for anyone who wasn’t attentive it would be attributed to a gust of wind, not that those happened down here.

“Do you remember anything from before?” she asked.

“I…” she started. Hermione could see that she had raised her arms and was starting to try to explain something but the thought fled from her mind before she could really start.

“I do not,” was what came out eventually, trough closed teeth’s she said. There was an unknow anger in her voice when she said that, it surprised her not knowing where it came from.

Apparently the witch herself surprised herself too, as she had been stopped in her tracks by it.

“I don’t remember anything before… Before the void.” She eventually vocalised.

“There was just nothing around,” she began explain her earliest memory, “That lasted forever or not at all before a point of light started to appear. But before that…” she said, “there was just nothing.”

“…” for the first time their roles had reversed, Hermione being spoken too and not responding to what Bellatrix had said.

“What is my name?” the question was asked, spoken to the air Bellatrix wondered.

“You don’t know your own name?” she asked, wanting confirmations before moving forward with a lot of questions.

“I don’t.” Bellatrix answered surprised, “I don’t know anything…” she said more to the room that her. For the first time Bellatrix looked defeated, the fire in her eyes had lowered to embers. Resembling those of the fires that burned all-night, still capable of lighting a flame but a gush of wind could blow it out.

Seeing her in such a fragile state Hermione stood up, slowly approaching the older witch. Not wanting to disturb her, she moved towards the bed in staying in view of Bellatrix. She saw that while she was still in a state of shock at the realisation that she was coming out of it slowly.

As she stood at the foot of the bed, Bella looked up, “Do you know it?” she asked hopeful.

“Bellatrix.”

“Hmn,” was all that Bellatrix said, pondering over the revelation. “And a last name? I feel there is more to it than just one name, like yours for instance. You must have a name, what was it?” she said holding up a finger shushing her before she could say anything.

“It was Hermle… something starting with Herm, don’t know what the last part was. But I’m pretty sure I got the first part right.” She said excitedly, seemingly happy that she was able to recall some information at least.

“Your last name is on the tip of my tongue,” she said sticking it out a little bit, “Ughh, I can’t remember, I just remember that it sounded like a great surname.” Then softer, “One I could take.”

“What‽” she asked, not catching the end of what she said.

“Your name, did I get it right?” Bellatrix asked her.

“Well, mostly right. My name is indeed Hermione, and the last name is Granger.” She told Bellatrix.

“Granger…” the name rolled off of her tongue with a sweet tone, like she was testing it out. “Granger, that’s a good name. A strong one too.” She mused for a second.

There was a silence that fell over the dungeon again, Bellatrix slowly repeating her name, taking care to pronounce ‘Granger’ with a tone of respect.

“Do you remember what your own one is?” she asked the witch hoping that the conversation had sparked something in her mind.

“No, still drawing a blank on that.” She said, nestling back in comfortably on the bed.

“Black.” Was all that she said.

“Black…” she repeated, with a gravitas that she hadn’t heard before. It sounded regal when she said it, like she was sitting upon a throne instead of her bed. Watching her empire spread out before her.

-

The rest of the time had been spend on clearing up some details from Bella’s time as a statue, letting her know who the two girls where. Their name and relation to her, what the time was as there was no way for natural light to reach down here. And she told her that she was free to wonder the dungeons but should hold off from venturing beyond it. She explained that there still where some dangers that snooped around out there.

Bellatrix had shed her dress stating that it was getting uncomfortable, having been in there for the past one and a half decades. Hermione had respectfully left the room when she did, not wanting to intrude upon her privacy.

Before leaving she had taken the file with her, arguing that while Bellatrix was alone in the room she shouldn’t have to accidently find it. She also wouldn’t want to have her find it and her mind just locking up and having the memories blend in and unpredictable way.

‘No it was safer if I hold onto it.’ She had reasoned, taking it and walking out of the room. Holding it in her arms she suddenly got the urge to look inside. Had Albus influenced her she wondered, he had told her to look into it. But, moments before she had still been adamantly against that idea, rejecting it from the first moment it had entered her mind earlier. Now though she was entertaining it, even more she had acted on it.

She had taken the book and ran. Even standing there it was difficult to not open it up and start reading, as she had met the witch for real for the first time today, she was curious about where she had come from.

‘One look wouldn’t ruin it.’ Hermione thought, holding the file in front of her. She opened it and looked over the chapter list that was included:’

  1. Essential information about BELLATRIX ~~LESTRANGE~~ Black
  2. 2\. A history on BELLATRIX ~~LESTRANGE~~ Black
  3. 3\. List of crimes thought to have been committed by BELLATRIX ~~LESTRANGE~~ Black
  4. 4\. The curious case of petrification



She almost, closed the book again before she saw one chapter that intrigued her, it was like she had seen it for the very first time. Reading the title she wondered if she would want to be enlighten about that part of Bellatrix’s life.

Hovering her finger of the title, she closed her eyes and pressed down on it. Releasing it as quickly as she could before the pages started to turn over to the chapter.

  1. THE CRIMES OF BLACK




	10. remembering family

While Hermione had left the dungeon she had undressed and put on somewhat more comfortable clothes. Her corset had been discarded and at the moment she never wanted to put it on again. stretching her middle, twisting it from side to side. Her back popped and cracked satisfyingly, in a way that it felt like there was a whole extra area of motion that she would now reach.

Her clothes discarded along the side of the room, she walked up to the desk that stood prominently before the base her, well she, had stood for it’s time in Hogwarts. Now there was just the slab of stone standing there.

“thank merlin that we have spells to keep with this stuff clean.” She said running a finger of the stone, looking it over she couldn’t notice a single spec of dust on it. The stone looked a bit sad though she decided. It had been home for the longest time now.

Strolling over to the desk she sat on top of it, as if it was the most natural place in the world for her to sit. She looked at the trinkets that had slowly spread over the desk she started pocking at them. Picking up a few pictures she noticed that the people that were on it moved.

It was curious though that every time she looked at one of them all the people seemed to be leaving the frame, she wasn’t quite sure what expression was on them but they didn’t seemed to be pleased. There was only one picture where the people stood still, it was of a guy and a woman with a little girl between them. They where holding her in their arms and it looked like the girl was sleeping.

There must have been some time that had passed before she looked up again, staring at the girl that was standing before her. something had changed though she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. It was something about the way she was holding herself, it was more caged than before. Her hands where holding a binder in front of her, it looked like she was holding onto it for dear life.

“everything alright?” Bellatrix asked holding the picture in her lap, the girls eyes darted down to it for a moment. She became even more cagy if that been possible.

“Hermione is everything okay.” She asked again, now putting the picture down next to her. she got up from the desk and tried to approach the other girl.

It was a strange sight, the dark-haired witch in a baby blue nightgown. Approaching the witch in grey school uniform who took a step back every two she took. Eventually Hermione was driven against a the back wall of the dungeon holding the binder up as a protective shield.

Staying back a bit, outside of Hermione’s personal space to make sure that the younger witch wouldn’t jump when she tried to come any closer.

“What is wrong Hermione?” she asked for a third time, in just as many minutes. The younger which looked her in the eyes, seemingly searching for something. There was some kind of relief when she didn’t find it. Her shoulders relaxed a bit and the grip on the binder went from cramped to just holding it. Overall the girl seemed to be softening up.

Raising her eyebrow she kept standing there, not wanting to move before the other had answered.

“What…” she started, seemingly coming from far before entering the present again.

“You asked something.” She was able to surmise, from where she was standing and Bellatrix’s whole stance.

“I’m sorry could you repeat it again?” she asked offering a smile as if that would count as a good reason for her to repeat it again. but she would be kidding herself when girl did that adorable thing with her face it was difficult to say no to it.

“I was asking if everything was alright.” She said for a fourth time. this time it was less of a bother to her. she had a pretty girl smiling at her life was still a bit blurry around the roots but on the top is was still crystal clear. She had had a long time to study her, her ways of going trough the problem that had been put in front of her.

The look in her eyes turned dark a bit she noticed, it was like a memory was being replayed. Hermione broke eye contact with her and looked at the floor a bit ahead from her. “Do you remember anything from before?” She was asked. “Anything at all.”

Thinking it over, Bellatrix tried to recall something, a detail, a memory anything. But still nothing came to mind. Not a single speck was out of place or older then the moment she was beginning to become aware of variations in the void. Her observations of how the girl had worked tireless to figure out how to save her, her long days that she spend here.

Although she was still unaware of the day and night cycle that was going on, Hermione had spent an considerable amount of time doing her research here. There had been times that she would have been able to see the girl enter the room and then it would take till the next day before she would leave again.

“No, I remember nothing from before. I know things when they are told to be if I’m supposed to have remembered it, like my name or small things like spells and such, but not a thing more.” She told Hermione, who looked somewhere between relieved and sad about it.

“Bellatrix, would you like to know what your life was like before you turned to stone,” she started holding up a hand telling her to keep quiet, “even though what you might learn could change everything about you now?” she was asked.

‘Learning about her past with the chance that she would completely change.’ Is was an intriguing propositions she though, but there was also the chance that she didn’t like the person she might become. Bellatrix had arrived at an impasse. She pondered over it for a moment.

“What would you do?” she asked Hermione, looking at her companion in the dungeon. The only person here who knew a more whole picture about the world they lived in. A fresh pair of eyes on the problem at hand would be enlightening.

“What would I do?” she asked, looking up again. there was something going on behind those eyes, it was like the girl was making a balance up in her head. All the good that her decision now would make versus all the bad it could cause. In a record time there was a decision made. Hermione handed her the binder she had been holding onto for dear life the past couple of minutes.

“I would recommend reading the second chapter on your life before the petrification. I’d personally leave the third one closed for the moment, don’t think that jogging your memories whit a lot of negative memories is what we should be doing right now.” Bella opened it up and looked at the front page,

‘The File of BELLATRIX ~~LESTRANGE~~ BLACK’

-

The weeks had gone by quickly, Hermione had still spend a considerable amount of time in the dungeon. No longer trying to heal the which, as that was already done, but helping her regain her strength again. Although Bellatrix was a talented which, there seemed to be some long lasting effects that were still persisting in her. The amount of magic she possessed was now slowly growing, but any kind of spell, charm or hex she preformed it drained it.

This was peculiar as most wizards and witches would pull magic from the world that surrounded them and use that. Bellatrix was using the internal magic that was saturated in them all, so that any spell no matter how big or small looked internally for magic rather than using the passive one that surrounded them.

Bellatrix had also read her own file, skipping over crimes for the moment and was able to recall a few key memories from her youth. One where she and her sister Andromeda had been discussing some abstract wizarding art, another where she had first held her little sister Narsicca. These had all been happy memories.

But with the good also came some of the bad. Her memory of her father had shook her to her core, he was a violent man. One where love mend complete subjugation to him. He had been abusive to her, she had taken the brunt force of his aggression protecting her sisters from his wrath.

There had been moments where she had found Bellatrix sitting in the bed just kinda staring out into the distance, her eyes watery and tears flowing freely from them. She would wonder how long Bella had been sitting here silently weeping, but every time it was the same, she would sit next to her. take the file out of her hands and pull her onto the bed where she would hold her while she let her tears flow freely.

It would take anywhere between a couple of minutes to an hour that they spend in that position. Hermione whispering an unending string of words of comfort and Bellatrix shaking and crying. There had been a lot of sessions where they had spend hours and hours laying there in bed just talking to each other.

She had told Bellatrix about the time she and her friends had discovered that a basilisk was roaming the halls of the school above. Bellatrix had been intrigued when she mentioned that she had spend the latter part of the year petrified because she had looked at his eyes through a reflection.

She had also enjoyed the stories Hermione would tell about her double year, where she had used a time turner to take all the classes that where available to her. There had been a discussion about how old she was then. Bellatrix arguing that she should be looking at the calendar time that had passed. And she arguing that the time she had spent linearly from her perspective had made it that she had aged two years in one. Meaning that she had turned eighteen around the time that new year had come round.

-

As the schoolyear ended there was little special that happened. She had finished her exams in advance because of the project she had been working on. She spend most of her time with Bellatrix going over ways to fix the way her magic was pulling from. Eventually they had found a workaround, it was a simple spell that was originally designed to trigger the magic in children if it doesn’t want to start itself.

Spending time training down there she had gotten Albus to give Bellatrix her wand back. She had been ecstatic about that, she described it as having an old friend back for a hug.

Over the course of the last month Hermione had also noticed that the attacks on muggles by the death eaters had taken a new and grim turn. Now they had started to maim the parents of half-bloods and muggleborn that attended Hogwarts. While speaking with the order she had made preparations to keep her own safe no matter the cost. They had prepared a memory locking spell that would make them forget who they were and replace the memories with those of a couple that had always wanted to live in Australia, and now had the funds to do it.

Their goodbyes had been hearth breaking but they had understood that it would be safer for them if they weren’t in England in the next couple of years. Before their final goodbye till now they had taken a picture, a muggle one. On it you could see three people, a man, a woman, and a girl that was wise beyond her years. Hermione would carry that pictures till she saw them again to get them back to England.

At the same time Bellatrix had been moved from her home in the dungeon to the orders headquarters at the beginning of summer. Hermione moved in right alongside her, not wanting to spend too much time in her parents empty home. In the beginning there had been a bit of friction between the members of the order and Bellatrix, but when they realised that she wasn’t the same person the they might have met in the last war they became less apprehensive.

The meeting between Andromeda and her sister had been one of many tears and hugs between the sisters. They where the spitting image of one another, with small differences here and there. Bella’s hair was black like the night sky, while andromedas was a dark brown. Their stance and clothing was also radically different, Bella had taken a liking to black and dark red robes and dresses, in comparison to the lighter and more formal robes that Andromeda liked.

Bella also met her niece for the first time and immediately was the biggest fan of her. claiming her as soon as she saw the hair changing colour as her ‘favourite’ and giving her a bone crushing hug.

Bella had grown to be a touchy feeling person that wanted to hold hands with people, hug them, lean against them. It didn’t really matter what they were doing there was always some part of her that was touching Hermione. In the library they would share the loveseats that where placed round there. During meals they would be sitting thigh to thigh. Always keeping some contact.

It hadn’t taken long before they had abandoned any pretence that they wouldn’t be sharing a bed when they were in the Grimmauld house. They had grown closer and closer together. It was only a matter of time that Hermione realised that there might be more then just comforting each other.

It did take till Ginny had pulled her aside to ask if they had already slept together, she had stared blackly at her for a moment before she realised what was asked of her. ‘where they sleeping together?’ she thought, ‘well they shared a bed, held each other wile sleeping and would tell each otherer soft words of love and appreciation till they went to sleep.’

She had thanked Ginny for the question before storming off to find Bellatrix, finding her was an easy task. They had gotten into a couple of routines since living here. One of them was reading in the library if nothing else came up before that point. Finding her sitting there reading ‘The Tales of Beedle the Bard’ it was her favourite collections of stories she had newly rediscovered.

“Hey, Bella?” she asked.

Bellatrix looked up, seeing who was interrupting her reading time she glared till she recognised her. Smiling she answered, “Hemione, what is it?”

“You know how we share a bed, are really touchy all the time and so on?”

“Yes, I do.” Bellatrix answered a bit confused about what was asked of her.

“Bellatrix are we dating?” Hermione asked.

Bellatrix was confused for a second before she put her book down. She stood up and walked over holding her arms out. Pulling Hermione in, they stood there for a few moments. “Would you like to?” she asked.

“yes, yes I really would.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks ones more for pasta for providing the idea


End file.
